Re: Sanity check a dull world...

WaltBJ <waltbj01@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Oct 15, 8:34 am, Remus Shepherd <re...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Plenty of people here more informed than myself, so I thought I'd run
a world in my current WIP across you. Here's a brief description:
The planet Cleo (name is a placeholder) is almost idyllic for human
habitation, with 93% Earth gravity and no moon. Its distance to its sun
and its low axial tilt gives it an extremely mild and unchanging climate,
with an average daytime temperature around 60 F / 15 C (and nearly the same
at night) at the equator -
SNIP:
I am afraid your planet will not have dull and unchanging weather,
even it if had zero axial tilt. Due to the unequal solar heating
between the equator and the poles you will have Hadley cells (wiki
these) form and with the planet's rotation resulting in the Coriolis
effect you will have alternating warm and cold air masses forming
fronts traveling with the direction of rotation, just as it is here on
Earth. An average daytime temp of 15C at the equator means the tree
line will be pretty far south compared to Earth, whose mean temp is
about 14C. Granted, will not have our marked seasons. Of course, that
does leave drought, floods, snow, thunderstorms, tornados, and
hurricanes. Note that we had rare thunderstorms at Thule Greenland,
78N latitude, during the year I was there.

Actually, Hadley cells are why I placed the ice caps above 30 degrees
latitude, because that's the boundary of the horse latitudes. But I'm a
novice about such things. Does having the average temp so low reduce the
Hadley cell circulation, as I hoped? They'll still have occasional storms,
but can this system have less variable weather than the earth?

BTW in deserts or high
country say 100+ miles from the sea it can get very cold at night due
to heat radiation into clear skies.

Another reason I wanted overcast skies. Most of the story will take
place during the nighttime, and I'd rather not have my protag freeze.

.... ...
Remus Shepherd <remus@xxxxxxxxx>
Indefensible Positions -- a story of superheroic philosophy.
http://indepos.comicgenesis.com/
.

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