In recent years, “There are no more half seasons” He has stopped being just a way of saying and is becoming more and more in reality: we have always long and warm summers, more and more mild winters and spring and autumn with completely busted rhythms. It is not just an impression: more and more studies confirm that the seasons are no longer those of the past, and now on Progress in Environmental Geography One came out that takes a further step. Also told on The Conversation From the two authors, it is a job that claims that not only the “classic” seasons are changing and becoming unrecognizable, but that we should also recognize that new ones are being born, as a consequence of our activities.
Sympathetic and arrhythmic seasons: the crazy climate of our time
We will fly over that the study speaks of “anthropocene”, a concept whose validity has been questioned by some, and that on the contrary others believe it is perfect to tell how we are changing the world (worse). Instead, let’s focus on what the authors say about “our” seasons: their proposal is to begin to introduce new terms to define how they are changing. The first is syncopate seasons: Summer becomes more and more hot, the milder winter and extreme events are increasingly frequent.
Another term introduced in the study is arrhythmic seasonsthose that were once predictable (for us but above all for animals and plants) and that today are less and less. An example is spring that arrives more and more in advance, by getting the germination rhythms of the plants with all the consequences that this also has on the wings (for example the pollinators). Finally, there are now extinct seasons, at least at the local level: we move from the cold to the heat (and vice versa) without continuity, forcing for example migratory animals to change their rhythms.
From fosks to plastic: the new seasons created by man
According to the study, the problem is not limited to the seasons that we already know and that are drastically changing: the anthropocene has created new ones, of human origin. The authors make the example of the “season of the haze” (or even better than caligine): in Sudoriental Asia, between July and October, hectares of vegetation are burned to make room for the fields; This fills the sky of smoke and particulates for entire weeks, and is now a regular event on an annual basis.
Another example of the artificial season is that of garbage: between November and March, the tides bring to Bali something like 60 tons of plastic per day, collected at sea and deposited on the beaches of the island. The study also explains that in some cases we are adapting to the new seasons: the season of the haze in Southeast Asia is a known phenomenon that local authorities are fighting with prevention measures. However, it is not enough to adapt to the new conditions: the problem at the root should be eliminated – which is a bit the speech that can be done for everything related to climate change.
