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Climate change could make British summers last as long as eight months by 2100, a new study has predicted.
Using climate data from the last millennia, researchers set out to understand how our summers will change as temperatures continue to rise.
Six thousand years ago, summers in Europe lasted nearly 200 days, according to the researchers' analysis.
This lingering warm weather was caused by the weakening of key air and ocean currents around the Arctic.
Fast–forward to today, and we're seeing eerily similar conditions – with summers set to get even longer by the end of the century.
Currently, Europe's summer warm season lasts roughly 200 days, but researchers predict this could reach 242 days by 2100.
'Our findings show this isn't just a modern phenomenon,' explained co–author Dr Laura Boyall from Bangor University.
'It's a recurring feature of Earth's climate system. But what's different now is the speed, cause and intensity of change.'
In the new study, led by Royal Holloway University, Dr Boyall and her co–authors set out to understand why Europe's summers have been lasting longer.
To do this, they looked at ancient sediments collected from the bottom of European lakes, which act like time capsules of climate data over the last 10,000 years.
They discovered that changes in the length of summer weather were closely connected to the temperature difference between the Arctic and the equator.
This so–called 'latitudinal temperature gradient' helps to drive powerful winds from the Atlantic Ocean into Europe, steering weather systems across the continent.
They also help to distribute heat from the warmer tropics into the colder polar regions and drive ocean circulation.
However, because the Arctic is currently warming four times faster than the rest of the world, this critical gradient is rapidly decreasing.
Dr Boyall explained: 'This decrease in gradient slows the jet stream that normally brings over the cooler Atlantic air into Europe.
Because the jet stream slows, it also becomes more wavy, which allows warmer air to stay over Europe and causes longer and more persistent summer weather.'
In their paper, published in the journal Nature Communications, the researchers looked at the number of summer days over thousands of years.
This allowed them to predict how the length of summer might change over the coming decades.
Here, summer is defined as the warm season when key indicators like air pressure and ocean temperature flip over from the cold winter season.
Their analysis revealed that for every one degree Celsius that the latitudinal temperature gradient decreases, Europe sees six extra days of summer.
Based on the current trend of global warming, if big changes aren't made to global greenhouse gas emissions, this could add 42 extra days of summer by 2100.
This would exceed the extraordinarily long summers of 6,000 years ago and cause serious consequences for the world's population.
Dr Boyall says: 'An extension to eight months of summer would cause major disruptions, particularly for agriculture, as a much longer growing season leaves less time for soils to recover and increases pressures from heat and water stress.
'In addition, hotter and more prolonged summers would heighten the risk of heatwaves and droughts, creating significant public–health challenges.'
Importantly, although our modern summers and those in the distant past are driven by the same mechanism, they have very different underlying causes.
Between 8,000 and 10,000 years ago, ice sheets covered large parts of North America and Eurasia and strongly cooled the higher latitudes.
When these ice sheets naturally retreated, the poles warmed relative to the tropics and weakened the gradient, leading to more extreme summers.
'In contrast, the modern weakening of the gradient is driven by human activity,' says Dr Boyall.
'Our results show that the present gradient has already surpassed the lowest values reached naturally in the past, and it is projected to continue weakening as the Arctic continues to warm.'
Climate scientists know that temperatures, ice extents, and CO2 concentrations change naturally, but these changes take place over millions of years rather than decades.
For example, in the 2.5 million years prior to the Industrial Revolution, global CO2 concentrations were stable at around 280 parts per million.
Over the next 200 years, CO2 concentrations rose to 420 parts per million due to human activity – the highest they have been in the last 14 million years.
Lead researcher Dr Celia Martin–Puertas, of Royal Holloway University, says: 'The findings underscore how deeply connected Europe's weather is to global climate dynamics and how understanding the past can help us navigate the challenges of a rapidly changing planet.'
This comes after the world has experienced a run of record–breaking temperatures and extreme weather events.
Researchers have found that 2025 is now almost certain to be the third hottest year on record, with average temperatures 1.42°C (2.56°F) warmer than during the 'pre–industrial' period.
Previously, 2024 smashed previous records for the hottest year ever, with average temperatures hitting 1.55°C above the pre–industrial average.
There has now been a 26–month streak of record–breaking temperatures, with the sole exception of February 2025, which was only the third hottest ever recorded.
Carbon emissions and the greenhouse effect: A primer
The greenhouse effect is the reason our planet is getting too hot to live on.
CO2 released by human activity is accumulating as an 'insulating blanket' around the Earth, trapping more of the sun's heat in our atmosphere.
CO2 – and other greenhouse gases – are emitted by actions such as burning fossil fuels like coal for energy, burning forests to make way for livestock and
Fertilisers containing nitrogen produce nitrous oxide emissions – another greenhouse gas.
Meanwhile, fluorinated gases are emitted from equipment and products that use these gases.
Such emissions have a very strong warming effect, up to 23,000 times greater than CO2.
Sources: European Commission/BGS/NASA