Source: The Map Report
If effective policies against climate change are not implemented, by 2100 the new normal in the Northern hemisphere could be a summer that lasts six months and a winter less than two months, concluded a study made by the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology (SCSIO) and published in February 2021 on Geophysical Research Letters. Researchers compared the climatic data collected every day between 1952 and 2011, to see the change in the rhythm of how seasons alternate in the Northern hemisphere
The results of the study show that in a 60 years period, the length of summer has lengthened from an average of 78 days to 95, while winter has shortened from 76 to 73 days. Spring and autumn have also shrunk, from 124 to 115 days on average, and from 87 to 82 days, respectively. Not just shorter. The numbers also reveal that spring and summer start earlier than in the past, while autumn and winter, later, with the Mediterranean and Tibetan areas being where the cycle of seasons appears to be most altered.
The study warns that if this trend is not reversed, the risk of increasingly extreme weather phenomena will rise further. Longer summers and shorter winters, moreover, could cause a significant shift in the biorhythms of plants and animals, altering entire ecological communities and impoverishing agriculture. Consequences on human health are also inevitable, with an increase in the duration of pollen allergies and vector-bornediseases.