European summers have been getting longer and hotter. However, there’s been a “high uncertainty” about exactly how or why this is happening, says Dr Celia Martin-Puertas, a lead researcher from the Department of Geography at Royal Holloway.
Now, new research reveals that today’s heat patterns mimic those of 6,000 years ago, and could be a sign of even more hot days to come.
For the study, which was published in Nature Communications, Martin-Puertas and her team focused on an important record of climate history: mud. Sediments found at the bottom of Europeanlakes give a snapshot into how the seasons have changed over the past 10,000 years.
They assessed the “latitudinal temperature gradient,” or the temperature difference between the Arctic and the equator. This gradient is what guides the weather in Europe, driving winds from the Atlantic Ocean to the continent.
And as the Arctic warms up, the temperature difference between the Arctic and the equator decreases. As a result, air currents slow, thus intensifying and extending summer weather patterns like heatwaves. The summer season itself would also last longer.
