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topography is different. And there are mountains to the east. What happens when Vancouver gets an easterly air flow?
Dry and wet parts of the west might be rather different.
True but I don't think the mountains would have that much of an effect... except perhaps having more foehn type winds in the winter which would just make the record highs in winter higher that's all.
Western Europe would be only slightly warmer than Siberia as the prevailing winds would be from the east off the frozen Eurasian landmass. Britain would have a climate more like Sakhalin Island or at best northern Japan. All this would mean a much lower European population and the whole history of western civilisation very, very different.
Seattle would become one cold city in winter. As would Vancouver. LA's and San Francisco's summers would become very hot even along the coast. Snow would be virtually nonexistent here in the Mid-Atlantic region. Western Europe would gain a reputation for particularly brutal winters. Weird world to think about.
The mid Atlantic states up to New york city would be much much more subtropical rainfall would actually decrease in some areas though...
topography is ery important when thinking about these scenerios, the rocky mountains to the east would be the green and lush side and the west would be considerable drier, colder and more continental but not as continental as lets say east of the rockies today.
Does anyone think about ocean currents because i'm sure new ocean currents will appear.
If the Earth rotated clockwise, the prevailing winds would reverse direction, so east coasts would be oceanic and west coasts would be continental, the opposite of what we see today. The hurricanes would slam into Africa, and although that would be interesting, I think they have enough problems. Anyway, another way to think about it is that the spinward sides of continents are more continental, and the trailing sides of continents are more oceanic.In real life, spinward corresponds to east, whereas in this scenario it corresponds to west.
This reversal of rotation is reality for Venus, which slowly rotates in the opposite direction of Earth and most other planets. Although tidal forces are the most likely cause, such a rotation can also be instigated by a big impact event during the formation of the solar system, so the chances for any given planet to rotate backwards may be higher than you think. One or more big impacts can also cause weird axial tilts, and this is what likely happened to Uranus. More big impacts formed Charon and our own Moon, so if you're constructing fictional scenarios don't be afraid to be bold - real life may be a lot stranger than you think.
As it turns out, our own system is weird by galactic standards, with every terrestrial planet in the inner solar system, every gas giant in the outer solar system, all with nearly circular orbits. If you compare us to the hundreds of planetary systems we've discovered, our "setup" is quite unusual. Pretty much no one guessed that 20 years ago.
We'd be a lot colder, considering our primary influence would be from Siberia. We'd be subarctic I guess, similar to Sakhalin, but considering we're further north, and most of Great Britain is not very close to the European continent, we'd be colder in summer.
As Ben says, Europe wouldn't be what it is today if the earth rotated clockwise. There's no doubt the British Empire would never have existed, Europeans would never have settled in the Americas..
The current day mediteranean region in Europe would be much colder in winter, followed by a much wetter summer. Cities like Lisbon, Madrid, and Toulouse in Southern France would be much much colder than it is now winter highs may be around -1C to 4C in central Spain. I think the mediteranean sea would create a possible lake effect pumping up the precipitation west of the body of water. It may be enough to make the areas to the west and maybe surrending areas warmer in winter and cooler in summer creating a mini oceanic climate especially for Iberia and the mediteranean islands, North Africa penisula Italy and southern france.
The balkans would be under the influence of the black sea, the area inbetween the black sea and the caspien sea would be influence by the caspien sea. Snow would be an issue in Northern spain and southern france, Northern Italy and Romania in the balkans.
Northern Europe would be subarctic and with no bodies of water or inland sea like the south it would be more continental especially in winter with wild temperature swings like northern canada.
The British Isles would be colder but due to the bodies of water seperating britain it would be slightly moderated by the north sea. The north sea would keep the east coast cloudy with frequent snow events caused by sea effect.
The baltic sea may be partially or all frozen.
Eastern north america would have a oceanic climate with places like Halifax, Portland, St johns and Quebec having climates like current day paris, berlin and Dublin. Snow would be rare and bye bye noreasters and those hot and humid summers.
Minnesota, wisconsin and Iowa would have locally enhursed precipitation, this regions would have snow on occansions.
But i've most probably missed things....
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