Thread: If earths axis were 45 degrees

what would the climate be like? would the tropics extend further north and south spreading plant life?

Your question has been researched a bit. (see links below).

Some of the effects.
Virtually no ice caps or possibility of ice age because of the particularly strongly heated summers at high latitudes
Extreme temperature changes as mid to late latitudes, hence overall more difficult conditions for organisms to survive.


http://physics.bd.psu.edu/faculty/williams/3DEarthClimate/ija2003.pdf]High Planetary Tilt Lowers Odds for Life?[/URL]

http://physics.bd.psu.edu/faculty/wi...te/ija2003.pdf

Any simulations which i can mess with earths tilt to see what conditions would be like?

Originally Posted by KTevolved

Any simulations which i can mess with earths tilt to see what conditions would be like?

Not that I'm aware, but as a thought experiment imagine the weather being like current earth where 20 degree further poleward in the winter and 20 degrees equatorward in the summer.

While the tropic circles would move toward the poles, the antarctic and arctic circles would move toward the equator. At a 45 degree axial tilt, they would meet. Thus you would pass from the tropics to the arctic with no temperate zone in between. If you lived on one of these lines you would go from the Sun passing directly overhead at noon to just barely getting above the horizon at noon in the course of 6 mo.

So in the tropic region would it be like the tropics are now? Like covered in rain forests.

Near the Equator would...though perhaps experience pronounced wet and dry seasons at the Inter Tropical convergence zone moved dramatically N and S from season to season.

The subtropics would get some wild swings of weather-- Imagine regular snows in Orlando during December-February though about what it is now (ungodly hot) during the summers.

Wouldn't the present tropics experience 2 winters and 2 summers a year? Perhaps not intense summers and winters, but there would a significant amount of variation between 2 sun over head summers and 2 sun much lower on the horizon winters. And the polar regions would see much wider difference in insolation between their 1 summer and 1 winter per year.

Im also in thought about climates being more stable since there would likely be less fluctuation between tropics and polar. To which the tropics would be cooler and the polar warmer than usual because of wind and ocean currents? But i maybe wrong.

I'd have thought there would be greater fluctuations due to more extreme polar winters and summers - hot part of the globe to cold would be an enhanced driver of atmospheric circulation - but I could be wrong. Not sure what impacts on Hadley, mid-latitude and polar circulation cells; a breakdown of that tropical band that tends to separate the circulation within each hemisphere?

Yes thats what im saying there would be even circulation throughout the globe bringing warmer air to the polar regions and cooler air to the tropics. I would also think there would be less of a desert belt because of this even circulation.

Originally Posted by Ken Fabos

Wouldn't the present tropics experience 2 winters and 2 summers a year? Perhaps not intense summers and winters, but there would a significant amount of variation between 2 sun over head summers and 2 sun much lower on the horizon winters. And the polar regions would see much wider difference in insolation between their 1 summer and 1 winter per year.

In a way, much like the equator does now--but they would still be relatively mild differences in temperature, though perhaps pronounced rain and no rain seasons.

If you pull up the first link I provided, you'll see that even in their 85 degree tilt climate model (P85), the tropical temperatures don't change by very much.

There is one thing that confuses me. If the tropics and polar regions meet does that mean like on one side its warm and the other its freezing? Need clarification on that. I would think if the cooler would be warmer and the warmer cooler than earth would be more habitable.

It seems counterintuitive to me that the equator would not see significant broadening of temperature range given there would be a wide variation in insolation. Dominated not by insolation but by ocean heat and atmospheric circulation and moderated by cloudiness and cycle at 2x per year? (Sorry, haven't had opportunity to do more than skim through the second link). I wouldn't rate my guesses as anything more than guesses - climate modelling based on atmospheric and planetary physics is far more likely to give valid results.

How about 90 degrees?
Cassini

What effect would that have on the methane currently trapped under frozen tundra in Alaska/Canada and Siberia. Massive amounts of methane suddenly freed up and floating around in the atmosphere.