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LONDON — If you’re planning a summer break in Europe anytime in the next 10 years, bring an umbrella.

Scientists studying unusual weather patterns in recent years have concluded that the pattern of cold springs and wet summers could persist for a decade or longer.

The warning came after parts of Europe shivered through one of the coldest springs on record and floods swept across Central Europe, prompting a state of emergency to be declared in the Czech Republic.

Further south in the French Pyrenees, the ski resort of Porte-Puymorens reopened this month to take advantage of late snow and winter temperatures on the pistes.

In weather-obsessed Britain, the freak weather patterns were raised at a summit of climate scientists convened on Tuesday to discuss the recent run of unusual seasons in Europe in a cycle that began in 2007.

Stephen Belcher of the Met Office, Britain’s official weather watchdog, said: “Ultimately what we’ve seen in each of these seasons is shifts in the position of the jet stream which impact our weather in certain ways at different times of year.”

The jet stream that flows eastward up to 10 miles, or about 16 kilometers, above the North Atlantic Ocean at as much as 200 miles per hour normally brings warm summer air to Europe. It is also the reason why flights from the United States are quicker than outbound ones.

In recent years, however, the path of the jet stream has shifted southward, trapping cold air over much of Europe.

But is it a natural phenomenon or yet another perverse consequence of global warming? The scientists hedged their bets.

“There is some research to say some parts of the natural system load the dice to influence certain states of the jet stream,” according to Professor Belcher, “but this loading may be further amplified by climate change.”

The current weather phenomenon is not unique. Europe underwent the effects of so-called Atlantic multidecadal oscillations in the 1950s and early 1960s and in the 1880s.

The decline of Arctic sea ice, which some scientists blame in part on man-made climate change, is one of the factors cited as responsible for the recent unusual weather patterns.

The Met Office, Britain’s national weather service, has been the target of climate change skeptics who have showed a tendency to shoot the messenger when the weather fails to behave as predicted.

John Hirst, the head of the Met Office, once revealed that he had received death threats over his department’s stance on man-made climate change. That was after the Met Office was criticized for failing to predict a wet summer in 2009 and a snowy winter in 2010.

The scientists who met on Tuesday were cautious about their long-term forecast. While factors affecting the current weather cycle raised the odds of wet summers for a few more years to come, “It doesn’t rule out the possibility of decent summers over the next few years,” according to the Met Office.

That said, this summer already looks like a washout. And it is not only troubling potential vacationers.

Early summer fruits are maturing late, grain harvests are likely to be well down, and beekeepers are complaining that a third of hives failed to survive the winter.

In Germany, disappointing job figures in May were blamed in part on the bad spring weather.

In the distant past it was far worse. Joshua Keating of Foreign Policy this week pointed to some fascinating research suggesting that bad weather in Europe played a role in the expulsion of Jewish communities during the Middle Ages.

A paper published by George Mason University in Virginia found that lower temperatures leading to poor harvests in the 15th and 16th centuries were associated with a higher likelihood that a Jewish community would be expelled.