Sprung: warming alters seasons

SPRING is arriving earlier each year as a result of climate change, the first "conclusive proof" that global warming is altering the timing of the seasons, European scientists have announced.

In what is believed to be the world's largest study of seasonal events, such as the flowering of plants, autumnal leaf fall and insect behaviour, scientists found that spring now starts six to eight days earlier across Europe than in the early 1970s.

Warmer temperatures have also delayed autumn by an average of three days in the past 30 years, the scientists report.