Earlier, researchers found remains of 400-million-year old forest in arctic Norway. Now, researchers from the United Kingdom revealed that the ancient tropical forest is linked to a climate shift in the history of our home planet. They believe trees of the forest were behind the climate shift.

Dr. Chris Berry from Cardiff University’s School of Earth and Ocean Sciences recognized the ancient fossil forest in Svalbard. In a statement, Berry said, “These fossil forests show us what the vegetation and landscape were like on the equator 380 million years ago, as the first trees were beginning to appear on the earth”.

The researchers said when a tropical forest grows near the equator, continental drift carried plants to north. The 12-foot-tall trees of the tropical forest had diamond pattern trunks, which made them different from today’s forest trees.

Dr. Berry said the researchers analyzed preserved remains of the trees and found that they lived during the late Devonian period, which means about 400 years ago. It is presumed that about 15-fold atmospheric CO2 was reduced during the late Devonian period.

According to Berry, the evolution of vegetation was responsible for the reduction in the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide because the trees were absorbing CO2 though photosynthesis, a process that plants use to convert sun’s light into chemical energy, to build their tissues. The new forest finding in arctic Norway challenges scientists preconceived notion of tree evolution.