Off the World News Desk:

The world is hottest it has been since the end of the ice age - and the temperature's still rising

“A reconstruction of global temperatures going back 11,300 years, which covers the historical period from the founding of the first ancient cities to the space age, has concluded the biggest and most rapid change in the climate has occurred in the past century.

Scientists found that the warm period following the end of last ice age, called the Holocene, peaked about 5,000 years ago when the world began to get cooler. However, this cooling went into a dramatic and sudden reversal about a century ago when global temperatures shot up to levels not seen for thousands of years, the scientists found.

The study, published in the journal Science, further undermines the frequent argument put forward by climate “sceptics” that global temperatures now are no higher than they were in previous centuries, long before the increase in industrial emissions of carbon dioxide.”