Average temperatures around the world in the last thirty years of the 20th century were higher than any other time in nearly 1400 years. That’s the conclusion of the first climate reconstruction to examine global climate change from a regional perspective by an international network of climatologists known as the PAGES 2k network.

Their findings, based on climate data from eight continental scale regions, including Australasia, Europe, North and South America, are published today in Nature Geoscience. The data, which was derived from sources such as tree rings, glacier ice, pollen and corals, showed all regions except Antarctica experienced a long-term cooling trend that reversed abruptly in the 20th century. Read more.