We all know the familiar rhythm of the year — spring blooms, summer heat, autumn colours, and winter chill. But in the Anthropocene, the era defined by human impact on Earth’s systems, that natural order is starting to unravel. Climate change isn’t just warming the planet — it’s reshaping the very idea of seasons.
A new paper by historians Joshua P. Howe and Lorraine Daston explores how the concept of the seasons is shifting under the weight of global warming. Far from being timeless or fixed, our seasons are being redrawn by human activity, giving rise to entirely new — and sometimes unsettling — seasonal patterns.
The Collapse of Traditional Seasons
Historically, seasons have been defined by stable, predictable changes in weather, ecology, and human activity. But climate change has begun to blur those boundaries. Winters are shorter. Springs come earlier. Summers are longer and hotter. Autumns don’t cool down the way they used to.
The result? Our centuries-old understanding of “four seasons” is beginning to break down—both scientifically and culturally.
New Seasons Are Emerging
The paper identifies several new kinds of “seasons” that are being formed or recognised in response to climate change:
🔥 Fire Season
Once confined to dry late summers, wildfire seasons have become longer, more intense, and less predictable. In places like California and Australia, “fire season” is now a fifth season in all but name, stretching across much of the year and altering life, policy, and ecology.
🌊 Hurricane Season on Steroids
While Atlantic hurricane season has long been a recognised period, warmer ocean waters have made storms more frequent, more powerful, and more erratic—turning what was once a defined season into a longer, more dangerous one.
🦟 Mosquito Season
As temperatures warm, disease-carrying mosquitoes are active for more months of the year and have expanded into previously temperate regions. Public health now faces a new kind of “season”—one defined by climate-driven disease vectors.
🌾 Growing Season Disruption
Farmers used to rely on consistent planting and harvesting times. Now, early thaws, unexpected frosts, and erratic rainfall mean that growing seasons are less dependable, requiring constant adjustment.
❄️ “False Spring”
These are unusually warm spells in late winter that trigger early plant growth, only to be followed by a damaging frost. They reflect the increasing mismatch between temperature cues and ecological timing—a new “season” of uncertainty for plants and pollinators.
From Natural to Anthropogenic Time
Underlying all these shifts is a broader insight: seasonal time is no longer purely natural. It’s become entangled with human systems—energy grids, insurance markets, health warnings, even calendars.
The authors argue that this shift is not just ecological but conceptual. We’re moving from “cosmic time” (tied to the planet’s orbit) to “climate time,” shaped by human influence. Seasons, once a marker of nature’s order, are now a signal of its disruption.
A Challenge for Culture and Science Alike
This transformation poses a challenge not just for meteorologists and climatologists, but for culture, policy, and identity. Festivals, traditions, holidays—even our sense of the passage of time—are linked to the seasons. What happens when those seasons no longer behave?
The paper invites us to think of seasons not as fixed stages of a natural cycle, but as social constructs that reflect our relationship with the environment. And in the Anthropocene, that relationship is in flux.
Conclusion: Living in a New Seasonal Reality
Climate change is not only warming the planet—it’s reshaping the calendar. Fire season, false spring, and prolonged mosquito seasons are just the beginning. As we move deeper into the Anthropocene, we may need to rethink not only how we respond to these new seasonal patterns, but how we define them in the first place.
In this new world, the seasons aren’t what they used to be—and that changes everything.
Seasons and the Anthropocene, Progress in Environmental Geography (Sage Journals), 2025-06-12
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