EPA: Climate

[Diamond]

Okay, there's been some concern expressed at how the climate is in Nourika. According to the EPA rules, Doug's entry (the Ice Age) may not be ignored or contradicted, so there needs to be some degree of realism in how our entries reflect the climate altered by the glaciers. On the other hand, this thing isn't 'hard science' by any means, so a degree of latitude should be given as well.

Now since I know next to nothing about climatology, I leave it to more knowledgeable people to write out some kind of broad overview of how the climate is affected by the incipienct Ice Age.

The question is: how detailed should we be here? Myself, I lean in the direction of pretty detailed, down to average temperatures, snow and rainfall levels, growing seasons, migration patterns, etc, etc. But as I said, I'm not the one to compile somthing like that, so if that's the way we go, someone else is gonna have to do it.

So. Poll-wise, your choices are:

-Just wing it, as we've been doing, but bear in mind Doug's entry.
-Broad, generalized weather/climate overview
-Detailed weather/climate descriptions
-Other (please state)

If we vote to have at least a general description, when whoever writes it is done, we add it into Doug's Ice Age entry as additional information.

[Sir Ironside]

Why not have really strange weather paterns, and in more northern climates, long nasty winters?

[GBW]

It could be said that Thunder Bay has been having worse winter weather due to its position on the freshwater Yooper Sea/Lake Superior. Lake effect snow, the harbor getting frozen solid more easily, etc.

[Bruno]

How about the PA Earth is in a permanent El Nino/La Nina situation (whichever would work for this scenario)?

I personally think the El Nino thing will work, given how the map shows the weather patterns and how it fits with Doug's Ice Age entry.

[Diamond]

Works for me.

[Ran Exilis]

Here's two climatological maps of North America I just dug up.

The left one represents the continent at the point when the last ice age was coming to an end, while the one on the right represents the present-day situation.

Here's the [link (https://www.uwec.edu/jolhm/EH3/Group8/past.htm)] for the ice age map, which you guys might find interesting as that page has a few more other climatological maps of ice age North America.

I say we go by a somewhat toned-down version of the 8,000-years-ago map 'mixed' with the present-day situation, and work in the permanent La Niña scenario as well.

In other words; let's push the ice in eastern Canada a wee bit further north, and use the variable polar jet stream from the La Niña scenario to cool down Alaska and northwestern Canada - that way, we might just get an icecap that neatly straddles the 65th lattitude (which is what Doug described, after all) rather than one that just covers all of eastern Canada.

California and its heavily altered coastline could still plausibly maintain a Mediterranean climate, and the area of Seattle-Vancouver could plausibly maintain a somewhat cool but wet and stable climate.

That variable polar jetstream from the La Niña scenario also has the advantage that it'll make the Appalachian and the easternmost part of the Midwest warm and wet, and therefore stable and not too different from the present-day situation.

That way, the area of the Apple-Acorn Trail and Mishigan would have remained relatively warm and wet in spite of the ice age climate changes, and I think it also fits rather nicely into GBW's ideas about the climate differences in Mishigan, Yoop and the land north of Lake Superior.

And last but not least; the La Niña scenario also means that the area of New Mexico, Arizona and Texas will be pretty dry - which fits rather nicely in the reasons I gave for the Anathona's success in these areas (the reasoning was that the Anathona thrive here because the area was too harsh for pretty much everyone else - so for the sake of consistency, I'd appreciate it if people didn't decide to turn Texas into a lush grassland...).

..
That said; the La Niña scenario shows that the dry area also includes southern Louisiana and even Florida.

We could work this in and say that Florida now has a dry climate, but I'd say that it won't really be a problem if we just handwave things a little and say that the dry area doesn't expand any further east than Texas. In other words, things could easily go either way here.

I suggest that we leave the decision about what kind of climate Florida has to the first person who makes an entry about it.

[Bruno]

<snip>


Once again, your awesomeness comes through! I like all those ideas.

As for all the slight inconsistencies, we can just handwave all those differences to the fact that the La Nina scenario is still in a bit of flux, with some years (or decades) it's only at mild level instead of strong level, or that some greenhouse gasses are still in the atmosphere throwing off a few the calculations or that there's an Ancient weather modifier device still operational somewhere or whatever.

So - just for general purposes - we'll use a toned down version of Ran's Ice Age map as the guide?

Edit:

Here's a good link (http://www.geo.arizona.edu/Antevs/biomes/)to get some general descriptions of all the biomes described in the map, along with pictures.

Here's another link (http://www.mbgnet.net/) that goes into a bit more detail (inches of rain, specific flowers, etc). It's geared mostly to high school kids but looks pretty informative.

This link (http://www.runet.edu/~swoodwar/CLASSES/GEOG235/biomes/intro.html) is a bit more technical but is pretty informative.

[Sir Ironside]

Once again, your awesomeness comes through! I like all those ideas.

As for all the slight inconsistencies, we can just handwave all those differences to the fact that the La Nina scenario is still in a bit of flux, with some years (or decades) it's only at mild level instead of strong level, or that some greenhouse gasses are still in the atmosphere throwing off a few the calculations or that there's an Ancient weather modifier device still operational somewhere or whatever.

So - just for general purposes - we'll use a toned down version of Ran's Ice Age map as the guide?

Edit:

Here's a good link (http://www.geo.arizona.edu/Antevs/biomes/)to get some general descriptions of all the biomes described in the map, along with pictures.

Here's another link (http://www.mbgnet.net/) that goes into a bit more detail (inches of rain, specific flowers, etc). It's geared mostly to high school kids but looks pretty informative.

This link (http://www.runet.edu/~swoodwar/CLASSES/GEOG235/biomes/intro.html) is a bit more technical but is pretty informative.

Under the control of the Recyclers? Or perhaps the secret masters of the Moremen?:innocent:

[Bruno]

Under the control of the Recyclers? Or perhaps the secret masters of the Moremen?:innocent:

Or maybe an insane AI that's been left on its own for a few centuries? ;)

[Ran Exilis]

As for all the slight inconsistencies, we can just handwave all those differences to the fact that the La Nina scenario is still in a bit of flux, with some years (or decades) it's only at mild level instead of strong level, or that some greenhouse gasses are still in the atmosphere throwing off a few the calculations or that there's an Ancient weather modifier device still operational somewhere or whatever.

Indeed - and as this world has gone from an at least fairly strong greenhouse effect to a new ice age in only a few centuries, such fluctuations are pretty much to be expected.

And another fact worth mentioning; the oceanic currents - which also have a huge effect on the global climates - will take a lot longer than just a few years (and quite possibly decades or even centuries) to catch up with the recent climate changes and stabilize - especially currents like the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation).

That too could very well cause a good deal of weird weather patterns and short-therm climate fluctuations. (hell, we might not even need ancient weather control devices in order to explain the various weather and climate anomalies)

And we're not going for a ten on the Mohs scale of sci-fi hardness anyway, so I'd say we can afford to handwave a few minor details with broad explanations, as long as we don't overdo it.

..

Another thing about greenhouse effects and all;

The glaciers that at one point in the forgotten past had entirely disappeared are once again creeping southwards, the natural climatic feedback of a world whose brief interglacial is coming to an end.

The results differ, depending on the area. Coastal areas observe sea levels dropping by a few meters per decade, revealing the secrets of long-gone civilizations as the waters subside and cause annoying disruption to the port facilities of the seafaring states of the continent.

This part of Doug's entry not only states that the glaciers and icecaps have expanded greatly and that sealevels have been dropping for as much as a few metres per decade, but it also states that the glaciers had, at some point, disappeared completely.

In this present-day world, this is not yet the case, and that's where it gets interesting, because this suggests that the world was actually subject to a runaway greenhouse effect shortly before the advent of this new ice age.

Now, it goes without saying that going from a runaway greenhouse effect to an ice age within a few centuries at most will result in all sorts of weather and short-therm climate anomalies, but there's also another interesting aspect to this;

With all glaciers and - presumably - the lionshare of the arctic and antarctic icecaps having molten away at some point, sealevels should have risen dramatically (as in; several metres) for a short while. And that should have had a severe effect on human civilisation (which would tie in rather nicely with the worldwide downfall of human civilisation during and/or after the events of the Fall).

And as a special bonus, we can use those rising sealevels during the short 'greenhouse' period as an excuse to explain why the current sealevels and coastlines of TTL's 'present' are still pretty similar to those of the OTL present, in spite of the fact that Doug's entry clearly mentions that sealevels have been dropping as much as several metres per decade in recent times ITTL.

[Diamond]

See? I told you guys it was better not to define exactly how the world ended before we got started. That way, we get awesome ideas like this. So Ran, you want to write that up a little bit in 'entry format', and I'll edit it into Doug's original post?

[Bruno]

And another fact worth mentioning; the oceanic currents - which also have a huge effect on the global climates - will take a lot longer than just a few years (and quite possibly decades or even centuries) to catch up with the recent climate changes and stabilize - especially currents like the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation).

An extra extra bonus that also ties in with the super-greenhouse effect that PA Earth had before things fell apart.

I refer to the Younger Dryas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas) , which was a brief (well, 1300 years long, to be precise) 'Mini-Ice Age' that occurred a few thousand years AFTER the 'real' Ice Age ended.

wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas#Abrupt_climate_change)


The prevailing theory holds that the Younger Dryas was caused by a significant reduction or shutdown of the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation) in response to a sudden influx of fresh water from Lake Agassiz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Agassiz) and deglaciation in North America (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_America).The global climate would then have become locked into the new state until freezing removed the fresh water "lid" from the north Atlantic Ocean (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Ocean).


In other words - the glaciers all melted, causing all that extra water to rush into the Atlantic -- and that screwed up the ocean currents so much that another Ice Age occurred until things could stabilize.

Yes - a (completely bastardized) version of this theory was used as the basis of The Day After Tomorrow.

This fits in perfectly with our runaway greenhouse melting all the glaciers idea -- we basically recreated another Younger Dryas.

[Sir Ironside]

Or maybe an insane AI that's been left on its own for a few centuries? ;)

If Diamond will allow it, I have away to add this into my next entry.

[Diamond]

If Diamond will allow it, I have away to add this into my next entry.

It's not a matter of what I allow, it's what we as a group decide upon. This thing was my idea, sure, but we're all doing the work on it.

[Bruno]

It's not a matter of what I allow, it's what we as a group decide upon. This thing was my idea, sure, but we're all doing the work on it.

Exactly. Besides - we've already introduced one or two AI run bases, so another won't make any difference. Just make sure it's not too over-powered. No 'this base controls the entire weather for the central part of North America' kind of thing. Maybe make it like Diamond's Utah Ring - a few hundred miles in diameter in size (if that).

I'm thinking of having some kind of 'Land of Fire' thing myself - just need to develop it a bit more.

[Sir Ironside]

Exactly. Besides - we've already introduced one or two AI run bases, so another won't make any difference. Just make sure it's not too over-powered. No 'this base controls the entire weather for the central part of North America' kind of thing. Maybe make it like Diamond's Utah Ring - a few hundred miles in diameter in size (if that).

I'm thinking of having some kind of 'Land of Fire' thing myself - just need to develop it a bit more.

Local weather control might be a good idea, and it could effect a larger area, indirectly.

[Diamond]

Local weather control might be a good idea, and it could effect a larger area, indirectly.

Yeah, you could get some weird knock-on effects at the 'border'; maybe curtains of perpetual rain that you have to trudge through to reach... paradise? :D

[Bruno]

Yeah, you could get some weird knock-on effects at the 'border'; maybe curtains of perpetual rain that you have to trudge through to reach... paradise? :D

Or so they think.

...dun dun dunnnnnnnn...

[Doug]

For what it's worth, Ran Exilis' thoughts are exactly spot-on to how I imagined it.

I'm glad that he picked up on the "entirely disappeared" part. :) Also, he didn't need to say "in spite of" with reference to sea levels; I did that on purpose, so we wouldn't have to jimmy around our current coastlines.

I was assuming that the climate was in general changing to what I was describing; the ice limit was set, but that oceanic currents haven't really caught up to the Earth's natural climactic "backlash" to the past high global warming, so really we can butterfly most kinds of weather (within reason...no New England deserts, please!) as being part of some climactic instability.

[Doug]

Also, kudos to Bruno for 100% exactly identifying what PA's ice age is based on: some analysis I did on the Younger Dryas. :)

[Diamond]

So Doug, you gonna get back in this thing? We've got a new round starting as soon as Alex posts his...

[Doug]

So Doug, you gonna get back in this thing? We've got a new round starting as soon as Alex posts his...

Sure! I need to re-read the recent entries, but I have time on my hands once again.

[Straha]

So, why the choice of ice age and not global warming?

[Haggis]

Well Straha if you had read the damn thread you'd know. Simple as that.

[Emote Control]

I'm new to the site, but it seems to me that World War 4 (or 3, depending on the entry) might have cast huge amounts of dust into the upper atmosphere due to nuking and rocking of cities, which not only canceled out the preexisting global warming effect but caused the temperature to drop even below preindustrial levels. Thus we get both a colder temperature now, and rising seas as part of the backstory.

[Diamond]

That's a good point; Ran may have touched on that in one of his entries, but I'd have to go back through them to be sure.

[Ran Exilis]

I'm new to the site, but it seems to me that World War 4 (or 3, depending on the entry) might have cast huge amounts of dust into the upper atmosphere due to nuking and rocking of cities, which not only canceled out the preexisting global warming effect but caused the temperature to drop even below preindustrial levels. Thus we get both a colder temperature now, and rising seas as part of the backstory.

Let's see... you've got a good point; most nuclear explosions ITTL took place during the Fall of the US (by contrast, WWIII mostly managed to avoid nuclear war) and the last major phase of WWIV.

Both of these nuclear war events took place in a sufficiently short period to hurl enough dust into the atmosphere in a short enough amount of time to have the maximum possible effect on the global climate.

But OTOH, it should be kept in mind is that the possible effects of nukes on the global climate should not be overestimated.

Let's compare them to major volcanic eruptions; the eruption of the Krakatau (or Krakatoa, if you go by the English spelling) in 1883 had an estimated strenght of 1500 megatons - yet its only effect on global temperatures was that they dropped for IIRC one or two degrees for two or three years.

The 1883 eruption also hurled an estimated 25 cubic kilometres of dust et al into the atmosphere - keep in mind, that's 25 billion cubic metres - yet even this did not even come close to hurling the world into a new ice age.

Add to that that volcanoes are a lot more efficient at hurling matter into the atmosphere than nuclear weapons (especially the ones that are detonated well above the surface), and you'll need a truly enormous amount of nuclear explosions to affect the climate so much that it'll stop global warming and help start a new ice age.

..
Another problem with using nuclear winter as a factor that helped start the new ice age is that it has already been established that global temperatures and sealevels peaked around 2200-2230 AD or so - about half a century after WWIV.

In a scenario with a significant nuclear winter, the cooldown would have started almost immediately, and it should have become noticable across the world during the next year.

[Emote Control]

What if the global warming caused a shutdown of the ocean currents, like in the Day After Tomorrow. It was a terrible movie, and I don't think we'd ever get a blizzard in India, but I know the idea of disruption of ocean currents causing cooling (or at least lesser warming) has real currency in the scientific community. We might declare that once the shutdown did happen the effects were more severe than anyone expected, causing a new Ice Age. Call it a matter of taste, but "oh, and then an Ice Age happened" doesn't sit well with me.

[euio]

What if the global warming caused a shutdown of the ocean currents, like in the Day After Tomorrow. It was a terrible movie, and I don't think we'd ever get a blizzard in India, but I know the idea of disruption of ocean currents causing cooling (or at least lesser warming) has real currency in the scientific community. We might declare that once the shutdown did happen the effects were more severe than anyone expected, causing a new Ice Age. Call it a matter of taste, but "oh, and then an Ice Age happened" doesn't sit well with me.

That's what was decided upon. A Younger-Dryas repeat.

[Ran Exilis]

That's what was decided upon. A Younger-Dryas repeat.

This.

EC, you'd do well to read the thread properly before replying to it.

[Emote Control]

My bad.