"Hot weather extremes have increased around the world in the past 15 years despite a slowdown in the overall pace of global warming, a study showed on Wednesday."

"Heat extremes are among the damaging impacts of climate change as they can raise death rates, especially among the elderly, damage food crops and strain everything from water to energy supplies.

'Observational data show a continued increase of hot extremes over land during the so-called global warming hiatus,' scientists in Switzerland, Australia and Canada wrote in the journal Nature Climate Change."

Alister Doyle reports for Reuters February 26, 2014. [2]