Michel Jarraud, director-general of the World Meteorological Organisation, said that water and temperature projections have become more valuable than the historical weather data that long governed strategy in agriculture, hydro-electric power, solar technology and other fields.

“The past is no longer a good indicator of the future,” the WMO chief told a press briefing, describing climate modelling and prediction as key to fisheries, forestry, transport and tourism, as well as efforts to fight diseases such as malaria.

People looking to build energy infrastructure are especially hungry for specific environmental information that can affect the long-term profitability of their projects, he argued.

“If in 100 years there is not going to be water going into the dam, it’s not a brilliant investment,” Jarraud said.

In the farming sector, the Frenchman suggested that guidance passed down through generations about how to prepare and manage crops was becoming less relevant because of changing patterns of heat, humidity and water access around the world.

“This traditional knowledge is no longer adapted. It’s exactly because your grandfather did this that you shouldn’t do it, because the context has changed,” he said.

“This is something completely new — to make decisions not on facts or statistics about the past, but on the probabilities for the future,” he said.

About 1,500 policy-makers, researchers andcorporate leaders will meet next week in Geneva to seek to improve the way climate information is collected and shared, among governments and also with the private sector.

That August 31 to September 4 meeting, which will take the pulse of countries who will seek in December to clinch a new global climate pact, is due to includetop UN officials including Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and 80 ministers and 20 heads of state or government, mainly from the developing world.

This sounds a little incredible that weed killers can improve the value of a key food crop. This is the first time that scienist report that the use of weed killers in farmers’ fields boosts the nutritional value of an important food a crop.

In the study, Dean Kopsell and colleagues note that farmers grow about 240,000 acres of sweet corn in the United States each year, making it an important food crop.

The scientists exposed several varieties of sweet corn plants to the herbicide mesotrione or a combination of mesotrione and atrazine, another commonly used weed killer, and harvested mature corn 45 days later. Herbicide applications made the corn an even-better source of carotenoids, boosting levels in the mature kernels of some varieties by up to 15 percent. It specifically increased levels of lutein and zeaxanthin, the major carotenoids in sweet corn kernels, which studies have linked to a reduced risk of age-related macular degeneration.