Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
7C colder? Well then, most of the southeastern U.S. could probably kiss their Needle Palms, Southern Magnolias, Escarpment Live Oaks, etc. goodbye. Even Atlanta and Birmingham would be hemiboreal, and places like Mobile and Charleston would still be mild but just lack enough summer heat. DFW would still be Cfa, but summers would be almost mild and winters more like northern Kentucky, which would make it a less-than-ideal climate for subtropical plants.
7C warmer? Our summers here in Middle Tennessee would be nearly unlivable. As wawa1992 said, it'd be a total sticky mess. Plus places like DFW, OKC/Norman and Austin would be horrible in summer with the hottest days probably full enough of 50C+ water vapor to severely scald anyone outdoors.
Do the former and it'd be sending us back to the last glacial maximum but with a more even temperature drop. The latter, and it'd be sending us into the dark future we face minus things like the Gulf Stream shutting down and polar vortex being even more free. Either scenario would be particularly nasty for someone like me, and I'm sure most of you reading this too. NO THANKS. You'd have to send me to Hawaii or Yuma in the former scenario and coastal northern California in the latter.
Last edited by Sun Belt-lover L.A.M.; 03-24-2020 at 11:27 PM..
The Earth's average temperature would still be 8 C / 46 F. There would be a lot more ice in the world, but it wouldn't be covered in it. Many tropical places would still never see frost.
Look up albedo. The Earth has been covered in ice before
True, but it's highly possible that it wasn't a complete "snowball Earth" - some places at low latitudes could've remained unfrozen and it still be a "slushball Earth".
However, a 46F average temperature wouldn't even nearly result in a slushball Earth, let alone snowball. That'd only be enough to send us back to the LGM. The mean annual temperature would have to be below freezing for a slushball or snowball Earth.
Places like Northern Africa, Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, and Australia will be in danger as oppressiveness will get insane. Dhahran will have 145 F heat indices, Kuwait City and Ahvaz could have an average summer high of 125 F. Greenland, Iceland, Northern Alaska, Canadian Territories, Far North and Far East Russia, and Antarctica will have melting causing floods worldwide, and Greenland will have 100 F record highs! .
My place (Chicago, IL) will have highs ranging from 44 F to 97 F, and lows 32 F to 81 F. Record highs will surpass 115 F!
Now for a 7 degree C colder world...
Many places will start getting crazy cold, meaning that Duluth will have winters of -10 F! Icecap climates will cover many parts of the Canadian Arctic. Greenland might become uninhabited fast. There will be more cold winter places than mild places in the United States in this scenario. Calgary could get July snow, and many parts of Canada too! Mexico will have snow and cold stuff in the lowlands more often!
My place (Chicago, IL) will have highs ranging from 19 F to 72 F, lows would be from 5 F to 55 F! Record lows will fall into the minus 40's!
Places like Northern Africa, Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, and Australia will be in danger as oppressiveness will get insane. Dhahran will have 145 F heat indices, Kuwait City and Ahvaz could have an average summer high of 125 F. Greenland, Iceland, Northern Alaska, Canadian Territories, Far North and Far East Russia, and Antarctica will have melting causing floods worldwide, and Greenland will have 100 F record highs! .
My place (Chicago, IL) will have highs ranging from 44 F to 97 F, and lows 32 F to 81 F. Record highs will surpass 115 F!
Now for a 7 degree C colder world...
Many places will start getting crazy cold, meaning that Duluth will have winters of -10 F! Icecap climates will cover many parts of the Canadian Arctic. Greenland might become uninhabited fast. There will be more cold winter places than mild places in the United States in this scenario. Calgary could get July snow, and many parts of Canada too! Mexico will have snow and cold stuff in the lowlands more often!
My place (Chicago, IL) will have highs ranging from 19 F to 72 F, lows would be from 5 F to 55 F! Record lows will fall into the minus 40's!
Indeed. Chicago would have DFW summers and northeast Virginia winters in the former scenario, and even DFW would barely be Cfa in the latter scenario! As you once said, with me merely thinking about it, "I am either melting or turning into a frozen (insert our usernames)!"
Yup if we simply lowered year-round temperatures by 7 C / 12.6 F, large parts of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago would turn into an ice cap climate. Some of it probably wouldn't be covered in ice, though, though there would be a lot more glaciers/ice fields/ice caps. Alert, Nunavut as an example would get a climate similar to McMurdo, Antarctica in the summer (though winter would be far colder) and McMurdo isn't covered by ice, it's bare rock. There's not enough precipitation in Alert to support an ice cap with July highs still at 30.4 F / -0.9 C but it would probably be snow-covered for about 11 months per year, maybe 11.5. Greenland would have widespread tundra climates only along the southwest coast; northern Greenland would be entirely ice-cap climates.
Tundra climates would become a lot more widespread. Even Calgary would become a tundra climate! As it is, the world's southernmost Northern Hemisphere sea-level tundra climates are around 53 N, and the world's northernmost trees are at 72 N. The "Arctic" starts around the Arctic Circle as it is; with 7 C cooler, now it starts in the 50's North.
Going to the hotter parts of the world, equatorial climates would become quite mild year round. Using Singapore as an example, average temperatures would be near room temperature, with 76/65 F (24/18 C) highs and lows and record highs in the 86 F / 30 C range. Only some of the world's hot deserts and steppes would experience extreme heat, and even that would be blunted with Death Valley topping out at 104 F / 40 C for an average high.
Yup if we simply lowered year-round temperatures by 7 C / 12.6 F, large parts of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago would turn into an ice cap climate. Some of it probably wouldn't be covered in ice, though, though there would be a lot more glaciers/ice fields/ice caps. Alert, Nunavut as an example would get a climate similar to McMurdo, Antarctica in the summer (though winter would be far colder) and McMurdo isn't covered by ice, it's bare rock. There's not enough precipitation in Alert to support an ice cap with July highs still at 30.4 F / -0.9 C but it would probably be snow-covered for about 11 months per year, maybe 11.5. Greenland would have widespread tundra climates only along the southwest coast; northern Greenland would be entirely ice-cap climates.
Tundra climates would become a lot more widespread. Even Calgary would become a tundra climate! As it is, the world's southernmost Northern Hemisphere sea-level tundra climates are around 53 N, and the world's northernmost trees are at 72 N. The "Arctic" starts around the Arctic Circle as it is; with 7 C cooler, now it starts in the 50's North.
Going to the hotter parts of the world, equatorial climates would become quite mild year round. Using Singapore as an example, average temperatures would be near room temperature, with 76/65 F (24/18 C) highs and lows and record highs in the 86 F / 30 C range. Only some of the world's hot deserts and steppes would experience extreme heat, and even that would be blunted with Death Valley topping out at 104 F / 40 C for an average high.
Yeah. I'd probably have to move somewhere like Yuma or Hawaii if that happened. Most of the rest of the U.S. would be miserable in that scenario. And I'd probably have to move to coastal northern California in the 7C warmer scenario.
BTW, I just realized something: in a world where every temperature were seven degrees hotter, Canada would have a really awkward climate: the likes of Toronto would be really hot in summer, and not warm enough in winter to make up for it, and while many of the northern towns/cities/hamlets would obviously be warmer in the summer, the winters would still be cold. (So a lot of northern Canada would probably have Winnipeg's climate.)
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
.
