Extreme heat is now one of the defining public health challenges of a warming world, explains Prof IAN WILLIAMS
Latest editorial
Heads in the clouds
Why do the Met Office care what you see out of your window? SCIENCE AND SOCIETY charts the history of amateur weather observations
19.01.1930-23.04.2026
Kate Clark pays tribute to Ricardo, whose life spanned the hopes of Allende’s Chile, the horrors of military dictatorship and decades of campaigning for justice in exile
The electoral cost of Labour’s stance on Gaza is impossible to ignore – the new leadership must take heed, argues PETER LEARY
After the dismissal of union representatives and years of precarious working conditions, Kimpton Clocktower workers are drawing a line, writes THOMAS BELL
Burnham’s Makerfield triumph offers the party the opportunity to reconnect with working people, but only if it rejects business as usual, says CAROL MOCHAN MSP
KIERA MARSHALL says there is a gulf between the privileged circles in which most politicians move and the lives of working-class youth in left-behind estates – and as a newly elected Senedd member she’s determined to do something about it
WHAT do you see out of your window? Many people have reported during lockdown that they are noticing nature and the weather more. Lockdown has undoubtedly led to cleaner air due to reduced pollution, and more wildlife due to fewer people outside, but it seems likely that many people simply have more of an opportunity to notice things. The weather is one of them: not for nothing did the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson call the sky “the daily bread of the eyes.”
Of course, some will have been keen observers of the weather pre-lockdown. One of the Science and Society team’s grandmothers has been keeping a weather diary every day for several decades, inspiring in her grandchildren an interest in the observation of nature.
Such practices date back a long way. The earliest known weather diary in Europe was made by William Merle, a 12th-century parish priest in Driby, Lincolnshire, who recorded the weather between 1337-1344. No previous document exists with comparable detail.
Similar stories
Extreme heat is now one of the defining public health challenges of a warming world, explains Prof IAN WILLIAMS
JOHN GREEN welcomes a remarkable study of Mozambique’s most renowned contemporary artist
ANDY HEDGECOCK recommends that these beautifully written diaries from Gaza be essential reading for thick-skinned MPs