Greenland--Not So Green Anymore

[Jdailey1991]

Back home, there are three factors to consider:


Mont Forel, Greenland's tallest peak, can be found in coordinates 66.9333° North and 36.8167° West

The Arctic Ocean's average depth is 3406 feet, 17,880 feet maximum

The maximum width of the Atlantic Ocean is 4,000 miles

We're talking about a planet that has a median surface temperature of 58.3 degrees Fahrenheit.


In this alternate scenario, these three factors have changed.


Greenland has been rearranged to the extent that Mont Forel can now be found at coordinates 90 degrees North and 0 degrees West--the North Geographic Pole.

The proportion and ratio between the Arctic Ocean's average and maximum depths is the same as back home, but the average has now become 1652 meters, 5420 feet.

The Atlantic's maximum width has now become 5350 miles, creating a landbridge that connects Asia to North America, erasing the Bering Strait off the map and shrinking the Bering Sea. To that extent, it would be like turning the Russian urban locality of Egvekinot (66.3205 degrees North and 179.1184 degrees West) the next-door neighbor of Teller, Alaska.

Remember, our median surface temperature is currently 58.3 degrees Fahrenheit. Would these three changes listed above lower the median surface temperature, or would it be the same?

 

[CupofJoe]

It probably wouldn't change the average temp of the Earth, but it sure as anything would affect the weather and climate.
The main energy input to the system [aka the Sun] is still there.
The way that water and winds transfer that energy around the planet have been very greatly changed.
After that you need to find someone that understands climate and weather a lot more than I do.

 

[Jdailey1991]

It probably wouldn't change the average temp of the Earth, but it sure as anything would affect the weather and climate.
The main energy input to the system [aka the Sun] is still there.
The way that water and winds transfer that energy around the planet have been very greatly changed.
After that you need to find someone that understands climate and weather a lot more than I do.

Any idea whom?

 

[CupofJoe]

Any idea whom?

If you want a more serious conversation, look at world building or science/climate forums on-line, local college teacher/professors and even libraries may be of use.
If you want my rough guess...
The lack of a Bering Strait and a land mass at both poles could cause worse winters at the poles. Warm water from the Pacific ocean enters the Arctic ocean and help mediate the winter freeze; cut that off and add a huge island and it becomes more of a moat that freezes easily.
In Europe that could lead to it being stormier and colder at northern latitudes [roughly Iceland down to the UK] and a warmer temperate region [France and south to the Mediterranean].
But if the spring melt was increased [because of the extra freezing...] it might push the Gulf stream lower making the UK and much of Northern Europe much colder and stormier in the summers with the temperate region much wetter.
In the Pacific, there would be huge effect to the fish and marine life as the Bering Straits is one of the most important fishing area. The change in ocean flows could cause all sorts of storm cycles that I just cant think of, but my feeling is that the west coast of the US would get drier and the east in Asia wetter...
And then there is how any of those effects would affect the southern hemisphere or Africa, or central Asia...

Any sort of detailed climate modelling takes huge computing power.
Bring on the Super-computers and start programming...

 

[Jdailey1991]

Can you be specific with the climate forums? I looked at some titles on Google, and all of them seemed to focus solely on our current climate change crisis.

 

[CupofJoe]

Sorry I have no idea.. It is not an area of great interest to me.

 

[skip.knox]

I recommended this before, but I'll do so again. I think you will get further with hard science questions if you join science fiction forums. Those folks eat this stuff for breakfast.

 

[Jdailey1991]

I recommended this before, but I'll do so again. I think you will get further with hard science questions if you join science fiction forums.

Like which, for example?

 

[skip.knox]

I'm not an SF writer, so I can't say for sure. Just do a little research -- SF writer forum -- and you'll find several. Then it's a matter of joining each community, participating for a while, and deciding which suits you best. That's how I ended up here. Because I write fantasy and this is a fantasy writing forum. But first I had to go through ... I think it was three others ... before settling on this one.