Tuesday, November 24, 2020

Summers are Getting Longer

One result of global heating is that summers are getting longer. At least anecdotally it appears that they are. Spanish machine learning company Predictia decided to put the theory to the test and use historical weather data to determine if Spain's summers were really starting earlier and finishing later.

You can view the results of Predictia's analysis on the length of Spain's summers on their Spain's Summer Length interactive map. Using climate data from AEMET and the University of Cantabria the map allows you to explore the number of days of summer in every municipality in Spain. If you select the 'Summer Length' layer under the 'Differences' section you can view the "average difference for the summer duration between the first period (1960-1982) and the last one (1983-2015)". This view allows you to view the number of days of summer in each municipality in Spain.

The map reveals a mixed picture. In much of Spain summers do appear to be getting longer. However there also appear to be smaller areas of the country where summers have actually become shorter in the period mapped. If you select a municipality on the map you can view a bar chart showing the number of summer days for every year from 1950 to 2015. This chart provides a clear picture of the length of summers in the selected municipality over the last 75 years.

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