Not only that, the consensus is that the transition from summer to fall is happening even more suddenly than spring to summer, a fact that came as a surprise to Scott, he said.
“I expected spring to summer to be the one that was maybe more abrupt, probably because of my own perception. But it turns out at the other end, we’re kind of maintaining hot, hot, hot, and then it will cool off quite rapidly, and we would then call it autumn, right?”
Defined seasons still have ‘usefulness’ despite warming climate
Despite the findings, there is usefulness in the calendar still, and the alignment with the seasons and their definitions, Scott said.
Toronto, Ont. (Getty Images)
While the PhD student and study author admitted it would be a “real shock to human culture” to stop defining seasons by the calendar, we do need to get used to the new reality of a shift in the weather behaviour of our four seasons as a result of climate change.
“We need to rethink when things happen. I used to coach cross-country running. In September, it would often be too hot to really train hard. And yet, the cross-country season runs from September to November in the Northern Hemisphere, as a general rule. At least in the U.S., [anyway],” said Scott.