Summer Is Getting Longer in Europe, Gaining About 10 Days Per Decade in Spain
Data from Spain's meteorological agency shows climate warming has lengthened summer in Spain by roughly ten days per decade since the 1980s. A study projects that without major emission cuts, summer in the Northern Hemisphere could last almost six months by 2100.
Europe is losing its familiar rhythm of seasons: because of global warming, summer is growing longer while spring and autumn shrink. The Spanish outlet Xataka reports this, citing data from Spain's State Meteorological Agency (AEMET). Since the 1980s, summer in Spain has lengthened by about ten days every decade, and a similar trend is seen elsewhere on the continent.
What is changing in Spain
The shift is uneven. A study analysing data from 44 weather stations between 1971 and 2018 found that summer starts on average 6.76 days earlier each decade, while it ends on average 2.74 days later. In other words, spring is changing the most.
According to AEMET, in some parts of central and northern Spain the transition between spring and summer, nicknamed "primaverano" (spring-summer), now lasts more than a month. Autumn has so far resisted the spread of heat better. On the Cantabrian and Mediterranean coasts, summer has become roughly two to three weeks longer in recent decades, while changes in the west of the country are considerably smaller.
Climate change is fastest in the Pyrenees and north-eastern Spain. At the La Molina meteorological observatory, the average number of hot summer days was 49 per year from 1979 to 2000, but has reached 69 over the past 25 years.
Forecast to 2100
A study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters projects that if greenhouse gas emissions are not cut significantly, summer in the Northern Hemisphere could last almost six months by 2100.
What it means for Latvia
Across Europe, heat periods are getting longer, and hot days arrive earlier in spring and persist later into autumn. This does not mean Latvia will soon have Spanish-style summers, but the boundaries between seasons are blurring here too: winters are milder, frost days are fewer, and warm weather can start earlier and last longer. Latvian climate projections suggest the growing season, the time when plants can grow and develop, could lengthen by roughly 27 to 49 days by 2100. The changes will affect daily life, leisure habits, agriculture, gardening and ecosystems.
