A Romanian geography teacher and climate observer has warned that Eastern Romania is already experiencing visible effects of climate change, including “compressed springs,” more frequent heat waves and major ecological transformations in rural areas.
In an interview discussing climate dynamics in the Moldavian region, Șerban Lucian of Colegiul Național „Gh. Vrănceanu” said recent weather patterns in Bacău illustrate increasingly abrupt seasonal transitions. He pointed to temperature swings recorded in early May 2026, when local temperatures rose from -0.9 degrees Celsius to more than 27 degrees Celsius within just a few days.
According to Lucian, the phenomenon is linked to the weakening and increased instability of the Jet Stream, caused in part by accelerated Arctic warming. The resulting atmospheric oscillations allow hot air masses from North Africa to move rapidly into Europe and remain stationary for extended periods.
He also highlighted the growing “urban heat island” effect, noting that concrete and asphalt surfaces in large cities absorb and retain heat far more efficiently than vegetated land, intensifying early heat waves.
The geography teacher rejected the idea that spring and autumn are disappearing entirely, arguing instead that transition seasons are becoming shorter, more unstable and increasingly displaced toward earlier summers and prolonged autumns. He cited his own phenological observations of a Ginkgo biloba specimen in Bacău’s Rose Park, where autumn leaf coloration and leaf fall now occur later and more abruptly than in previous decades.
Lucian described the winter of 2025–2026 as the coldest recorded in Bacău in the last seven years, although he cautioned that isolated colder periods do not contradict the long-term warming trend. April 2026, with an average temperature of 9.7 degrees Celsius at the Bacău weather station, ranked among the coldest Aprils of the past two decades.
Beyond weather anomalies, the interview focused on visible environmental changes in rural Romania. Lucian said the reappearance of blackthorn shrubs and the return of marsh-like areas on abandoned farmland reflect both ecological succession and the decline of traditional agriculture caused by depopulation and demographic aging.
He described these changes as signs of “spontaneous renaturalization,” a process in which ecosystems rapidly reorganize when human pressure decreases. The expert noted that the average annual temperature in Bacău has risen significantly in recent decades, from 8.9 degrees Celsius in the 1950–1974 climate interval to 11.3 degrees Celsius over the past 25 years, while the number of tropical days exceeding 30 degrees Celsius has doubled.
Lucian argued that climate change will increasingly affect agriculture, biodiversity and territorial planning, warning that “climatic hazard” will become one of the major challenges of the future.
Reflecting on the broader relationship between humanity and nature, he said current environmental transformations should not be interpreted as nature “recovering” lost territory, but rather as ecosystems reorganizing into new and unpredictable forms.
“The essential question today is not whether nature will survive,” Lucian concluded, “but whether our current way of life is compatible with our own future.”
