Europe may be breathing a sign of relief as its record-breaking heat wave eases, but there is still plenty to worry about. Temperature changes caused by global warming are likely to transform agriculture on both sides of the Atlantic. While the heat wave claimed thousands of lives in France, started bush fires in Portugal and toppled temperature records from London to Baghdad, the European Commission (EC) issued a little-noticed bulletin. It showed a prolonged drought was causing drastic changes in agricultural output, especially in Southern Europe. And the changes almost perfectly match predictions of the effects of global warming over the next century. Meanwhile in the US, the latest forecasts are confirming that, whatever the prevarications of the Bush administration, climate change will have a very real impact on the country. The eastern and western seaboards of the US will become much wetter over the next century while some central states will become so starved of water that they will be unable to support agriculture at all. The European reported by the EC's Joint Research Centre in Brussels reveals that the prolonged heat wave has caused crop yields to drop across southern Europe. For example, high temperatures and water shortages have cut maize and sugar beet yields in Italy by a quarter, and wheat yields have fallen by a third in Portugal.
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