Climate change could mean six months of summer weather by the end of the century

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“Summers are getting longer and hotter, while winters are getting shorter and warmer due to global warming,” said Yuping Guan, lead author of the study.

Of course, longer summers can sound great for a family vacation or for enjoying the outdoors, but this longer season can have a significant impact on our health, the environment and agriculture.

Heat waves can lengthen mosquito-borne illnesses become more widespread, pollen allergy season may become more severe and crop growing season will be longer.

The research shows that global warming makes the hottest quarter of the year, also known as summer, longer worldwide, and this also affects the start of all seasons.

“The onset of spring and summer is advanced, while the onset of fall and winter is delayed,” says the study.

The study breaks down the four seasons into four percentiles, with any temperature above the 75th percentile of the 1952-2011 temperature average being recognized as summer. Climate computer models are then used to show how these defined seasons change over time.

“In the period 1952-2011, the length of summer increased from 78 to 95 days and that of spring, autumn and winter decreased from 124 to 115, 87 to 82 and 76 to 73 days, respectively,” the study said.

Most regions in the Northern Hemisphere have had longer summers, but in the Mediterranean it has been growing at more than eight days every 10 years since the 1950s. This may not sound like much, but on a longer timescale it becomes more important.

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Global sea and land temperatures continue to rise from the mean, and the difference from the mean is also widening. The last time global annual temperatures were below average was in the late 1970s, meaning the last time it was cooler than normal was over 40 years ago, according to data from NOAA.
Climate change due to greenhouse gas emissions is the main cause of warming temperatures.

If nothing is done to reduce these emissions to slow the effects of climate change, summer could grow to six months by the end of this century, according to the study.

According to the business-as-usual scenario, spring and summer start about a month earlier than 2011 towards the end of the century, fall and winter start about half a month later, resulting in almost half a year of summer and less than two months winter in 2100. “

Countries around the world are trying to take action, but the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement are not being achieved. That includes efforts to curb emissions.

What this means to you

Aside from the warming temperatures and changing seasons, this has implications for human life.

This also applies to agriculture. Spring is the season when plants start growing in parts of the US. The plants bloom when they experience the warmer temperatures at the start of the season.

However, this time of year also has temperature fluctuations, where one day can be warm and the other cold. These extreme temperatures are common in climate change.

Starting spring a month earlier can mean catastrophic crop losses. Earlier weeks and months in the transition seasons can result in more drastic cold snapshots after spring buds opening.

“For monsoon areas, changing seasons can change the time of the monsoon. This means that patterns of monsoon rains also change. These kinds of changes may not be in sync with crop growth,” Guan told CNN.

“It may also limit the number of crops grown, encourage invasive species or weed growth, or increase the demand for irrigation,” says the Environmental Protection Agency. “A longer growing season could also disrupt the function and structure of a region’s ecosystems and could, for example, change the range and types of animal species in the area.”
There are other types of plants, such as ragweed, that produce pollen. With a longer period of warmer temperatures, allowing plants to produce pollen for longer and in greater quantities.
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The change of seasons will also affect wildfires and heat waves, likely increasing numbers.

“A warmer and longer summer will see more frequent and intense high-temperature events – heat waves and wildfires,” said Congwen Zhu, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences who is not affiliated with this study.

Heat events are, on average, the deadliest compared to other weather events, such as floods or hurricanes, in the US, as reported by the National Weather Service.
The report also notes how mosquitoes may be affected by the longer summers and warmer temperatures in the higher latitudes. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, mosquito-borne diseases such as Dengue can be more widespread in warmer climates and the time of year when it spreads can lengthen.

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