research<\/a>, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, found what most people can already feel: summer conditions, driven largely by human-induced global heating, were arriving earlier, lasting longer and felt more intense than they used to.<\/p>\nThey found that the length of summer \u2013 defined by the length of time summer conditions were experienced rather than calendar dates \u2013 was increasing on average by six days every decade.<\/p>\n
In Minneapolis, Minnesota, it was nine days every decade. In Sydney, Australia, it was about 15 days.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up in Minnesota, kind of the north midwest of the United States, and I remember seasons being very different than how they are now, especially summer,\u201d said Scott.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had the sense that they feel longer and they also feel like the transitions are much more abrupt. It feels like we had spring weather and then suddenly, boom, it\u2019s completely warm.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the last thing was that summers feel more intense. It\u2019s not just warmer, it feels like you get much less relief when summer arrives.\u201d<\/p>\n
The researchers analysed the stretch of days every year when temperatures were above a threshold that was historically typical for a specific city during the warmest part of the year. That threshold was set using data from 1961-1990, with the researchers examining the trends in each of those decades and the decades since.<\/p>\n
Their analysis found Toronto in Canada was adding a little over eight days to its summer every decade. France\u2019s capital Paris and Iceland\u2019s capital Reykjavik were adding 7.2 days.<\/p>\n
In the most extreme example, Sydney \u2013 where the threshold temperature was set at 21C \u2013 had a summer period that was growing at two-and-a-half times the global average.<\/p>\n
Scott said data from 1961-70 showed Sydney\u2019s summer tended to start on 6 January and end on 9 March. By 1991-2000 he said the researchers found a Sydney summer was starting on average by 21 December and ending on 12 March.<\/p>\n
In the most recent decade analysed, 2014 to 2023, Sydney\u2019s summer was starting almost a full month earlier on 27 November and ending on 28 March.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo recent summers in Sydney are much closer to 125 to 130 days long whereas that time in the \u201860s was half as long, 65 days,\u201d Scott said.<\/p>\n
The research also found that the shift from one season to another was becoming more abrupt, with summer-like conditions arriving more suddenly rather than gradually warming up.<\/p>\n
Scott said people\u2019s perceptions of what was happening to the seasons \u201cmatch what the data is telling us\u201d and this had implications for every facet of life, from school terms to sporting seasons to the planting of crops.<\/p>\n
Dr Andrew Watkins, an adjunct professor at Monash University\u2019s School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment, cautioned that the research had relied on globally aggregated datasets rather than focusing on datasets developed by local meteorological services. Watkins, who is also a councillor with Australia\u2019s Climate Council, said the results for Sydney would represent the greater region, including western Sydney, where many people live and which is known for its increasingly extreme temperatures as the climate crisis accelerates.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t change the story, which is absolutely right and is what we all, as scientists, have seen: summers are getting longer, winters are getting shorter,\u201d said Watkins.<\/p>\n
He said it was important to consider all of the effects that flowed from that including longer fire seasons, more heatwaves and other extremes that affected people\u2019s lives and health.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt all boils down again to our continued use of fossil fuels and continued emissions of carbon dioxide,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is exactly what we expect with climate change. We need to adapt for what\u2019s coming and mitigate and reduce fossil fuel usage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prof Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, of the Australian National University, said \u201cthe uptick in Sydney summers is not surprising\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen quite drastic changes in the past few decades,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we can replicate this result with the locally based observation products we have here it would verify the specifics of that result.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scientist Ted Scott could feel that summers in his home state of Minnesota were not what they used…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-607217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}