It's all so confusing: Replacing grasslands with trees allegedly prevents hot weather, or maybe it's replacing trees with grasslands that does that, or something

Hot days cooled by growth in grasslands

Our changing use of the land may have been taking the edge off hot days, scientists say.

The study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, suggests that the global pattern of replacing trees with grasslands could have been affecting extreme temperatures.

'We find that replacing tree cover with grasslands leads to a weak cooling effect, in the opposite direction of climate change caused by greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide,' says Dr Nikos Christidis from the Met Office, who led the study.