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Interesting, would some seasonal variance due to difference in distance from the Sun in different points of Earth's orbit exist then?
The effect might be more pronounced but will not have as much of an effect as people might think. To illustrate the effect of the distance on climate, look at the tropics. Their proximity to the equator mean the Earth's axial tilt is insignificant. Take a look the climate data of Singapore, for example. There's no noticeable difference in temperatures.
Let's suppose in January 1st, 2015 the axial tilt of the Earth suddenly stops:
0° : Equator would remain the same, hot and wet year round.
10°: Places like this with a wet and dry climate would get normal precipitation levels year round.
20 °: I guess the same, but a little cooler.
30 °: I think average highs would be around 27 °C on the east coast and around 22 °C on the immediate west coast.
40 °: Average highs around 15 °C to 20 °C year round.
50 °: If it's a hot place then maybe up to +15 °C average highs but on the cold parts it will be a tundra.
60 polewards: Tundra-Ice cap climate
This would be the immediate effect. But then think about this:
The ice in some places (like Fairbanks, I guess) is not going to melt, since there won't be any summer, and as the ice will keep expanding, it will drop south (or north, in the SE). The frozen water and lakes will not melt, either. Snow cover will drop even as south as 40. The air temperature will drop because of the colder seas (that's because the frozen seas will keep expanding as there will be no summer melting) and it will result in colder air masses. Winter anticyclones will become larger because they will not disappear, so places like Kentucky will become as cold as Winnipeg (mean annual temperature below 0 °C). Antarctica's temperatures will become permanently wintery, making the ice raise as north as New Zealand. Ice will make the Southern Emisphere a lot colder. As a lot of the oceans are icy, "westerly winds" will get icy as well. So a lot of the deserts like Mojave desert and Sahara desert will get colder as well. The only place which will remain unvariable will be the near tropics, because direct Solar radiation will heat the land and the waters, causing extreme temperature variation between the inner tropics and outer tropics. So, around latitude 10 °, the weather will become extremely variable, with both extremely cold and extremely hot winds, often causing extreme floods and tornadoes.
I suspect the general situation would be more different than expected, not simply a perpetual April/October around the world. As Nei said, glaciers would be widespread to many other areas, and I wonder if this could trigger a feedback loop resulting in a massive glaciation, even involving regions whose current annual average is well above 0ºC.
At least, we can imagine ice caps covering huge areas of Canada and Russia, which would lead to perpetual anticyclones over Northern North America and Asia, so we can expect much drier climates in such continents. For instance, I think of Asia as an immense barren land, with forests/fertile areas circunscribed to Southeastern Asia, Southern India, Souteastern China and parts of Japan.
I would think it would. The ice caps at higher latitude would reflect any sunlight cooler the earth a bit. And the locations to the south would recieve a cold wind off the ice caps. I'd guess glaciation would be widespread till at least 40° in much of the land. I'm not sure how high latitude oceanic locations would change.
The tropics would change to. Currently, the tropical rainbelt migrates north and south with the latitude of high sun. Without any tilt, the tropical rainbelt would be nearly fixed at the equator. The equatorial areas would be somewhat wetter, but outer tropics much drier.
A season is a period of time that last for 3 months, and there are four stages every year, these include spring, summer, autumn and winter. Seasons are caused by the tilt of the earth which means that some parts of the earth will have the sun shining on it for longer while some parts of the earth will only be shone for a short amount of time. The equator is the least affected while the nearer you would get to the north or south pole, you would be more greatly affected. The summer solstice is the longest day of the year and the winter solstice is the shortest day of the year which are both caused by the tilt of the earth and relate to the seasons. There are a few questions that can be scientifically answered about seasons. These questions include, what if the Earth orbited the Moon, what if the Earth had no tilt and what if the Earth orbited two Suns. The most effective one to solve out of the three would be ‘what if the Earth had no tilt’.
If the Earth had no tilt, means that the seasons will basically not exist or it would also mean that everyone would be in the current average of the four seasons the whole time through their lives, meaning everyone would be in mid autumn / vernal equinox. This will occur as the seasons can only happen due to the tilt of the Earth causing some parts of the earth to be close to the sun than other places. This makes some parts of the earth stay in the daylight and be hotter, while some parts of the earth will be shorter and colder. The Earth would have not much changes in the weather. There would always be 12 hours of daytime and 12 hours of night time, the closer you are to the equator, the hotter you are and the closer to the poles, the colder you are. Also, the poles would have more uniform weather than before instead of more extreme summers and winters, except that the sun would always be on the horizon 24 hours 7 days a week because you have a near straight view of the sun from the poles. This would be the most major change if the ‘What If’ question was applied to the current seasons. There would still be weather patterns such as rain, storms etc. However, there will be a whole different world with different and new diseases being born and becoming more numerous as diseases thrive well in humid areas. For example HIV and Ebola all originated from humid areas and if there is no tilt in the Earth, there would be much more humid areas. There will also be animals adapting into their new environments differently, this mean the closer they are to the equator the thinner their layer of fur or skin would be. This basically means that the closer you are to the North Pole, it would continuously be cold while the equator will always be hot. Also, as the sun gives off Vitamin D, the people living close to the poles will be low on Vitamin D and may adapt to the environment in their own way or they might have a shorter life span. The moon will also be seen from a different angle from before but the same face as we can only ever see one face of the moon.
It would be boring. There would hardly be any variation in weather throughout the year as there would be no seasons. Day length would be stuck around 12 hours all year round as well which would suck as you would never get those long summer days. Anywhere north of say 50 degrees would likely be uninhabitable/very unpleasant to live in with such a low sun angle year round. Tropics would be similar for the most part, maybe slightly hotter at the equator with a constant 90 degree sun angle. All in all, I'm glad we have an axis tilt.
Now the earth tilted at 90 degrees on its axis would be way more exciting. On June 21st in that scenario all locations north of the equator would experience 24 hours of daylight and the sun would just circle the sky. The sun would be directly overhead and motionless at the North Pole as well while the southern hemisphere would be entirely cold and dark. It would then reverse 6 months later leading to some crazy differences in weather and daylight between summer and winter.
It would be about the same for my area. It is already hot and dry most of the year. Only changes would be the days being the same amount of time and the sun not going lower in the south.
I suspect that for my area, the average would be around 60 F / 16 C year round, about what it is now (36 north) but with no seasons. There may still be occasional cold waves or heat waves but they'd be very tempered; average high would probably be around 70 F / 21 C, average low 50 F / 10 C. In a typical year, the maximum temperature would probably be about 82 F / 28 C and the lowest 38 F / 3 C. Snow would be a once in a lifetime thing, as would 90 F / 32 C heat.
What would the various climates on Earth be like if the earth had no seasons because the axial tilt was at 0°. How would that affect things?
Would the climate be a lot more uniform from equator to poles?
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts...
But ya gotta ask what time of year does the axis get stuck for good? That would make all the diff in the world. If i had to pick a month for the axis to get stuck it would be Dec 21st. As i hate a high sun like we get in the summer and it getting dark at 930pm jim. If the sun never came up again it would make me happy so lets add in there the rotation of the planet getting stuck as well. So my pick is the shortest days and having the sun never come up.
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