Hottest year since prehistoric times

NEW YORK - The world is now hotter than at any stage since prehistoric times, a top climatologist announced last week. His startling conclusion comes as Nasa reported that this year has been the hottest ever recorded.

Dr Michael Coughlan, head of the National Climate Centre at the Australian Government's Bureau of Meteorology, said: "One probably has to go back into prehistoric times - and way back in them - to be seeing these sorts of temperatures."

Top British climatologists agree privately but are cautious of saying so in public because, naturally, no measurements were taken of temperatures then.

Dr Coughlan is supported by research that shows carbon dioxide levels in the air - the main cause of global warming - are higher now than at any time in the past hundreds of thousands of years.

Scientists in Bern, Switzerland, and Oregon in the United States analysed levels of the gas in tiny air bubbles trapped in Antarctic ice during the past 650,000 years. They found current levels were 27 per cent greater than the highest level in that time.

Professor Sir David King, Britain's Chief Scientist, has said the last time levels of the gas were that high was 60 million years ago. And that was during a period of rapid warming in the Paleocene epoch, which caused a massive reduction in life on Earth.

Top climatological bodies around the world say 2005 is vying with 1998 as the warmest year on record. Nasa says it just beats it and the British Met Office says it is just behind it. The US National Climatic Data Centre says the two years are statistically indistinguishable.

- INDEPENDENT