By Stefan Messenger
Studying the rings inside oak trees (click here) has allowed scientists to produce one of the most detailed records yet of how the UK's climate has changed over the last millennium.
It reveals a picture of summer rainfall stretching back more than 800 years.
Periods of prolonged extreme weather coincided with historical accounts of famines and droughts.
The researchers said the data presented "huge lessons" about the potential impacts of climate change on society.
Core samples were taken from hundreds of oak trees across the UK, in a project led by the University of Oxford and Swansea University.
The trees grow a new ring each year and are particularly sensitive to how wet it has been during the summer months.
The widths of the rings were studied, as well as the chemistry of the wood.
It allowed the researchers to access what they describe as a natural archive of climate information, going way beyond the records held by the Met Office - which only cover a few hundred years.
The research also supported the Met Office's findings that British summers had become 13% wetter since the last century.
"We need that long-term picture to understand how unusual that is, and to try and figure out what might happen to our climate in future," explained Mary Gagen of Swansea University's tree ring research group....
