Americans sweltering in the recent record-breaking heatwave may not believe it - but it seems that our ancestors suffered through much hotter summers in times gone by, several of them within the last 2,000 years. A new study measuring temperatures over the past two millennia has concluded that in fact the temperatures seen in the last decade are far from being the hottest in history. --Lewis Page, The Register, 10 July 2012
"We found that previous estimates of historical temperatures during the Roman era and the Middle Ages were too low," says Professor-Doktor Jan Esper of the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, one of the scientists leading the study. "Such findings are also significant with regard to climate policy." They certainly are, as it is a central plank of climate policy worldwide that the current temperatures are the highest ever seen for many millennia, and that this results from rising levels of atmospheric CO2 emitted by human activities such as industry, transport etc. If it is the case that actually the climate has often been warmer without any significant CO2 emissions having taken place - suggesting that CO2 emissions simply aren't that important - the case for huge efforts to cut those emissions largely disappears. --Lewis Page, The Register, 10 July 2012
Our results suggest that the large-scale climate reconstruction shown by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) likely underestimate this long-term cooling trend over the past few millennia. Jan Esper, Science Daily, 10 July 2012
Esper says temperature reconstructions will have to be redone because past studies probably underestimated temperatures during the medieval warm period and other warm periods going back to Roman times. The further back in time, the greater the underestimate would be. But others have doubts. Mann argues that Esper's tree-ring measurements come from high latitudes and reflect only summer temperatures. "The implications of this study are vastly overstated by the authors," he says. --Fred Pearce, New Scientist, 10 July 2012
All scientists are sceptics, doubting both their own and others' research, and weighing the evidence carefully to produce the most robust conclusion. Scepticism runs through the culture of science like the word Blackpool through a stick of rock. Professor Philip Stott explores how scientists use scepticism and doubt in their work and how the proper application of these tools helps produce reliable and valuable information. He talks to working scientists as well as philosophers and sociologists of science, exploring the importance of this fundamental scientific principle. --BBC Radio 4, 11 July 2012, 21:00
A growing global food shortage has caused prices to double in recent years, and a growing consensus of scientists now blames climate change as one factor in an equation that includes a burgeoning population and increasingly scarce water supplies. More people around the planet are going hungry as a result. --Robert Roy Britt, LiveScience 5 June 2011
The world is expected to harvest the largest ever crop of cereals in 2012-13 according to an estimate released by the UN affiliated Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) recently. It is estimated that this year's world cereal production will be a record 2371 million tonnes, marking a 1 percent, or 27 million tonnes increase over 2011. --Subodh Varma, The Times of India, 12 June 2012
