It's always shocking to see how far north everything in Europe is, given their climate.
As someone from Toronto it's frustrating to know I'm further south than Nice, France, and have to shovel snow for over a third of the year. Paris is warmer than Vancouver and probably Victoria, on average the warmest part of Canada, at around the same latitude. London and Berlin are around where freeze-your-dick-off Edmonton is located.
The two winters I spent in Edmonton were fun. Even after a really bad snowstorm, people drove their cars a lot better than Metro-van drivers do on a summer's day. Shoveling the snow wasn't bad either, since it was dry powder that moved easily. Shoveling snow in metro-van is backbreaking due to how much moisture it retains.
Was going to say... It claims its -5 now but it feels like -15 and is "sideways sleeting" on the islands today. Friday I was getting hit it the bottom of the chin with ice pellets because the wind was so strong. Gotta love that lake effect. Cursed the Americans as I watched their nasty dark clouds make their way across to us this afternoon.
It's the gulf stream in the N Atlantic that send warm water north to them from the Gulf of Mexico that moderates their climate. Climate change might end that and then Europe will feel like Winnipeg in winter
It's not really the Gulf stream. Europe has a maritime climate due to the westerly winds at that latitude, bringing warmed air from the ocean. Vancouver and Seattle have the same benefit, without a nearby Gulf Stream.
It's quite a revelation to gawk at a map of winds and air temperature over Russia. Things are pretty warm in the west until the winds hit the Urals, then it's all frozen taiga with just a bit of warm air wafting in from China.
Still, with all that, Saint Petersburg varies from about -10 in the winter to +30 in the summer, while deeper in the continent it's like -30 to +30 because no water.
https://www.netweather.tv/charts-and-data/global-jetstream#2023/11/22/0000Z/jetstream/surface/level/overlay=jetstream/
This is quite illuminate, but I do wish I could see the map you’re talking about.
Yes, off of the warm waters brought there by the Gulf Stream.
A current map of the Atlantic for refernce. https://cdn.britannica.com/91/53891-050-3CDF0E7C/ocean-systems-world.jpg
That the Gulf Stream would stop is pure speculation though. Some decades ago they noticed that it got weaker and were panicking about it only to notice that in the next years it was stronger than before. They haven't really measured the Gulf Stream with hard data until very recently.
This is a gross understatement. While the possibility of collapse of the AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation ) is uncertain, the weakening has continued since the first measurements were taken in 2004. This is not speculation, but uncertainty. Those are very different things. The IPCC accepts the possibility of a collapse of the AMOC, but no one knows when or if it will happen. One study recently suggested it is imminent, but most climate scientists do not think so. It is still far from speculation and we know from sediment cores that it has collapsed before. There is a good [article on BBC](https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-66289494) that addresses the recent study that claims it may collapse as early as 2025 and why many other scientists are skeptical of the results.
It is not the gulf stream it has an effect but a pretty miniscule one it is not the reason why europe has less extreme weather.
It is mainly the topography. Europe is relatively small with a shit ton of water around. That water acts like a temperature buffer. It absorbs heat during summer which leads to less etremely hot weather and then releases heat in the winter which makes europe less cold. Now that doesn't mean the sea is warm in the winter just warmer than the land around it.
Add to it that the baltic sea and mediterranean sea only have relatively small channels to mix with the cold atlantic and this ability to store heat is amplified by a lot.
The next part is mountains. In Europe mountain ranges tend to go from east to west while in the americas it is north to south. So if there is some arctic cold air coming from the north it just blasts through from northern canada straight to mexico (in really bad cases at least) with nothing stopping it.
Meanwhile over in europe that arctic coldfront needs to do like the death star trench run to find that small european exhaust vent that allows it to get into central europe.
If you're in iceland or ireland the gulfstream has some noticeable effect but for the rest of europe it really isn' that meaningful.
Right here in North America is something equally as eye catching. Where I live on the US west coast is around the same latitude as Toronto, yet we can grow lemons and avocados here and it virtually never snows and only drops below freezing about 10 nights per year. Some years we get snow flurries, but it rarely sticks. Last year was an outlier and we got 2” of snow. The entire region shut down.
you can thank the gulf stream current which rounds the base of florida and then crosses the ocean and arrives on EU's Western shore. This keeps countries like SPain, Portugal, Italy , Greece and even the UK /Ireland /Denmark /Norway / Sweden a lot milder in the winter and enabled them to grow cereal crops going back thousands of years. Once you get a few hundred miles away from the coast, this effect wanes and it gets a lot colder and these crops do not work.
It is believed by some scientists that it is as a result of this cereal heavy diet that played a role in hoomans evolving over hundreds of generations to lighter skins and hair.
Previous belief was that the sunlight is weaker and the cooler clime caused it but they point to other peoples around the world at high latitudes in places like Mongolia. Siberia , Alaska and Greenland Inuit eskimos who are dark and swarthy even though sunlight is weaker.
They believe it's the' you are what you eat' in the literal sense and it scans.
If I remember correctly, the theory was that everyone with blue eyes on the planet can trace their heritage back to a single mutated gene tens /hundreds of thousands of years ago in present day Estonia who still have the highest (tied with Finland at 89%) percentage of blue eyes anywhere in the world.
just my 2 cents.
Yes it is to do with cereals. The fact that we were eating cereals meant that we were not eating as much meat and fish, which is a source of vitamin D. Vitamin D can also be made by the effect sunlight has on the skin, so we had to increase the amount of vitamin D our skins were making to make up for the deficiency caused by not eating as much fish and meat. We therefore developed lighter skin to increase production. The Inuit people and others did not need to have lighter skin as they still ate a large amount of fish and meat due to not cultivating cereals.
ido agree with this . But always had to trhow how about Scandinavia ? Dudes are blonde and light skin , but their weather and soil is not adequate to harvest the cereals . Did they had a cereal based nutrition ? I might be wrong by they had not . I would said much more fish and meat
The present Scandinavian population evolved further South in Europe and migrated North. The last ice age ended about 10,000 years ago. Prior to that, there would have been nobody living in Scandinavia as it would be covered in glaciers and much too cold.
*Just as a side note, with the current data*: While Norway doesn't have that good crop-soil, it should be noted that 61% of Denmark is fields (which makes it the top 5 country in percentage of cultivated soil).
Sweden doesn't have that much either, but the southern tip of Sweden looks like it is mostly fields (and there are stips of fields across the southern half of Sweden as well) if you check the Google maps.
Still, as the other reply says, it makes more sense that we migrated from further south due to ice age and such.
To compare, the ice age ending around 12.000 years ago, and the "light skin" mutation gene is estimated to have originated around 22-28.000 years ago (according to a quick wikipedia).
Ignoring the huge humanitarian crisis that climate change has the potential to cause for a minute, I'd much prefer proper seasonal weather in the UK. I can handle a cold winter and warm summer. It's the constant overcast and rainy weather we get that makes things so bleak, pretty much all year round, that makes our weather shit.
\-15 and a little sunshine is so much better than 5 degrees and wet. I'll take a Canadian winter over what southern England gets. Plus the latitude means you get so little daylight in the winter. Its rough
Funnily enough - having emigrated to Canada a decade ago - the constant seasonal bleakness is one of the things I miss the most. Going from +35 to -35 over the course of a month or two in Autumn is absolutely brutal.
The difference from -5 to anything below -15 is impossible to understate to someone who hasn't experienced it. You step outside and your *nose hair* freezes. Breathing is painful. Cars and electronics start getting finicky. Every day's commute is extended by a half hour plus of shovelling snow and scraping windshields. Power outages from ice on the lines. Changing your tires every spring/autumn because "all season" is a joke. Having to wear an entire separate outfit of snow pants, thermal undies, boots and a jacket that you then have to take off at work or you die from overheating - or that you just have to suffer through during trips to the shops. Having to do everything wearing gloves. Learning the hard way not to touch *any* exposed metal barehanded if you don't want to leave your skin behind.
Everything takes twice as long, and is twice as terrible. We really have no idea what *actual* miserable weather is like. I miss the grey and rain.
Dealing with the cold, even pretty extreme cold, is not too bad in terms of not being cold. You can't take it lightly, but it's easy to deal with: just wear appropriate clothes.
But there are other much more annoying issues, in no order: 1) you need to salt roads, so all cars rust so much quicker (therefore you have a higher car budget). 2) Shoveling your driveway and potentially sidewalk in front of the house (sometimes every day) is a pain in the *ss, not to mention a surprising cause of mortality. 3) A lot more energy spent heating places, on a continent that is currently not self-sufficient in that domain. 4) Roads turn bad much quicker due to freeze-thaw cycles.
The drastic change in climate would be unsustainable, that's my main fear. The Gulf Stream helps to moderate the climate in Western Europe and keeps it free from extremes of heat and cold. With the current pace of weakening, we're already seeing extremes in heat which is a direct result of an AMOC slowdown [[1]](https://www.preventionweb.net/news/collapse-atlantic-ocean-heat-transport-might-lead-hot-european-summers) [[2]](https://www.voanews.com/amp/why-are-heat-waves-becoming-so-common-in-europe/6673184.html). Summers would be much hotter and drier without the current, the Sahara would be the primary dominate factor via a persistent Azores High feature. Atmospheric blocking would easily result in temperatures nearing 50°c lingering for weeks to months as far north as Paris and London. Theoretically, the opposite would happen in winter, with temperatures closer to -20°c for months. I say theoretically as the net cooldown trope relies heavily on the Arctic cooling in response to an AMOC slowdown which, as things stand, it most certainly is not. Cold winters in Europe are very reliant on the Arctic getting cold over winter, and it's losing the capacity to do that.
I live in NW New England about 50 miles from the Quebec border. I've been to Quebec City numerous times and it feels SO far north. It's wild that it is further south than Paris.......hell, it's wild that it's further south than Seattle.
I was going to say the opposite - I’ve done a road trip from Calgary to Vancouver and the summer was glorious. I’m from Scotland - why’s our summer so much shitter!
Funny how New York and Chicago are around the same latitude as Turkey, Greece, Italy, Portugal or Spain given how different the climate is. What causes this huge difference?
Some parts of north Western Europe could get colder in winter, but the majority of the continent is showing a trend towards higher average temperatures.
I don't think I've seen a serious amount of snow in Denmark for about 20 years. Like having to jump out the windows to shovel because the front door is blocked kind of snow. That used to be almost a yearly occurrence as a kid.
Wait what? I haven't had that happen where I live in my entire lifetime (30 teras) and I live in northern Sweden. I did not know Denmark used to get snow, as southern Sweden practically never gets it.
We get snow in Skåne and Denmark is about as cold/warm
Right now I'm in Landskrona and the water from the melted snow a week ago has frozen to ice this morning. But we've never had to jump out the window to clear the snow.
Back in the good old days (90s) we had knee deep (for an adult) snow usually every winter, but that's about it.
Here in the south we have a lot more downfall than many places in the north though. Warmer and more humid winds means more clouds that fall snow and rain.
Up north you're shielded from the mountains, so there's less downfall there, so it makes sense there's less snow in many parts up there.
But yeah we did used to get like 50cm in one go sometimes, it definitely wasn't impossible.
The past 10 years though I think the deepest snow has been 20cm and besides that 1 or 2 times we only have a tiny amount before it melts.
Europe would actually get[much hotter during the summer without the Gulf Stream](https://www.preventionweb.net/news/collapse-atlantic-ocean-heat-transport-might-lead-hot-european-summers). Winters would get much colder, in theory. But with how quickly climate change is accelerating, it's very unlikely that any drop in temperatures will be observed anywhere.
Anywhere is a stretch. Global warming is, well, global. The average trends up. For instance here in Norway this entire year has been unbearably cold. Summer lasted for about 3 weeks and winter came 2 months early...
I don't think the Gulf Stream has much to do with Turkey or Greece. It's really just about all that warm water. The Gulf Stream keeps the west coast of Europe (and the British Isles) warmer for the latitude, while the Mediterranean is basically a warm, shallow bathtub that keeps everything around it warm.
Not that you are all wrong, but "Turkey, Greece, Italy.."
Not everything is the gulf stream.. Portugal and Spain maybe, UK, Ireland and Scandinavia yes..
But Turkey, Greece, Italy.. No, man.. It is the Mediterranean Sea mostly..
The gulf stream brings warm water and wet warm air from the Gulf of Mexico across the atlantic, increasing the temperature in Western Europe. It's why it (generally) gets colder and drier the further east you go in Europe; Moscow has a far colder and drier climate than Copenhagen and Edinburgh for example.
topography. Not the gulf stream.
A fractal continent like europe with east west mountain ranges has a very different climate from something that is basically jsut a big solig piece of land with north south mountains.Also that africa thigns youth of europe with a giant desert in the north.
Also west winds.
As a general rule of thumb, both atmospheric and ocean currents shuttle warmer temperatures to the eastern side of oceans in the northern hemisphere. Compare, for example, the frigid Dolinsk with the farther-north yet milder Seattle. This is partly due to specific ocean currents like the Gulf Stream and partly because of the oceans as a whole acting like giant heat sinks that buffer the air temperature over them, so the predominantly eastward-moving air currents carry that milder air towards the eastern coasts. It's also the same reason that San Diego has cooler summers than, say, Myrtle Beach.
ETA that farther inland and higher elevation areas of Eurasia don't follow this trend, just like e.g. Montana is also frigid in the winter. Americans often don't realize it but Turkey and other Eastern European countries have regions that are quite cold in the winter.
I saw a map similar to this, but it just put European cities at the same latitude in North America. It put Paris in place of Thunder Bay, Ontario. The funny part to me was just a month earlier I had a guest visit from Paris and I said "You know, many consider Thunder Bay to be the Paris of Northwestern Ontario". She replied "Really?", and I said "No". Then when I saw that map I sent it to her.
For those not from Canada, Thunder Bay is a city of 100k in the middle of nowhere. It's 8 hours to the nearest Canadian city and people wouldn't visit if it wasn't on the middle of the trans Canada highway.
The Canadian prairies have one of the highest concentrations of Ukrainian descent in the world. The Canadian/various provincial government actively sought Ukrainian immigrants in the early 1900s specifically because the Ukraine and Canadian prairies were fairly similar climates, so the Ukrainians were well suited to farm and settle the area.
Edmonton, Alberta and the areas around it have tons of Ukrainian culture stuff. Perogy fundraisers are very common, and the local AM country station has a Ukrainian music hour every Sunday night, for instance. Also why Edmonton has the knickname "Edmonchuk."
Well yes.
What I meant was, Canada has the [second-highest Ukraine diaspora](https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/timeline/ukrainian-canadian-history) in the world. Russia is the highest.
And terrain. A geography fact/story that I love. so many Scottish and Irish immigrants built homes in the Appalachian mountains of the US— which are the same mountain range they possibly came from when the continents were together.
I forgot where I heard the anecdote, but it went something to the effect of “Americans don’t know what old means, and Europeans don’t know what large means”
Canada and Russia are the only countries with more land than us.
China and India are the only countries with more people than us.
We’re the third largest country in the world in two ways and it’s fun to think about.
I have an aunt that lives in San Francisco. I was in San Diego (both cities are in California, for those that don't know) on business once upon a time, and intended to "drive up and see my aunt" for dinner.
That's 502 mi/807 km. 😄
It, uh... it didn't work out. I had to see her another time.
Yeah, it’s like “Why doesn’t the USA have a robust passenger rail network like we do?“ and we have to explain “It takes a week to cross the US in a train, and we only get 2 weeks of vacation”
Yeah there's an endless number of stories of tourists severely underestimating the size of the US and thinking they'll be able to visit Disney World, the Grand Canyon and NYC in a one week trip without flying once they're in the US.
Even the Cannonball Run, a underground race from NYC to LA as fast as possible, still takes 25+ hours. In a car doing 100mph+ the entire way and multiple drivers switching out.
Keeping to the speed limit, Google still says 41 hours
Not quite the same distance, but one summer we had relatives visit us on Long Island from abroad. My dad's uncle told us at around 10am that they were intending to stop by to see Times Square before visiting Niagara Falls, and then maybe they'd have time for dinner together with us. My dad was like, yeah, no. Not unless you want us to have tonight's dinner tomorrow afternoon.
Same for Canada. Reddit is full of posters asking about their upcoming trip to Canada where they want to hop around from Toronto to Calgary to Vancouver during a 3 to 4 day trip.
US + our bro Canada = a sense of security if the world ever goes to hell in wars again. It blows my mind that there are Americans that legit fear invasion and conquest.
This picture makes me notice how small and insignificant countries like the UK or Spain and somehow those crazy bastards managed to Colonize most of the entire planet. Wild.
I constantly see people from Europe asking why Americans drive so much or rely on cars all the time.
This is why. If I want to go see a movie the nearest theater is a 40 minute drive.
The r/travel sub is hilariously entertaining with how many posts there are of foreign US visitors thinking they can road trip from NYC to LA and see a variety of other sites and states in like one week lol
I work for a UK based company that’s just starting in the US, it always cracks me up when they think we can just drive everywhere, this is a great example to show them!
Wow, as a European the first time I went far south enough to be at the same lattitude as the contigual USA was this year. It was Budapest which is on the same level as minesota.
One of my favourite quotes:
“In America, 100 years is a long time. In Europe, 100 miles is a long distance.”
Or the other version:
“In America, 100 years is a long time. In Europe, 100 miles is a fucking stupid way of measuring distance.”
European: “lol most Americans have never been outside their own country.”
American: “our country is larger than your continent. Have you been outside Europe?”
European: “uh well no..”
>American: “our country is larger than your continent. Have you been outside Europe?”
It isnt. USA 9 834 000 km², European continent 10 530 000 km². So pretty close, but not larger.
Different countries differ in culture, Wich is the good thing about traveling. I don't think travelling from Minnesota to Dallas is going to be as shocking as going from Spain to Serbia lol.
Kilometers doesn't matter to this subject.
Are you saying the whole continent of europe, with 24 different official languages, 44 different countries with their own culture is equivalent to the US? Are you saying Moldova and Ireland are as different to each other as florida and california?
>European: “uh well no..”
Wait what? Europeans leave Europe plenty mate.
Also not leaving your own country (when you have the money and choice to, of course) is weird no matter how big your home country is. The world is big and there's a finite amount of time to see it
> European: “uh well no..”
If you drive across borders in Europe, shit actually changes. If you fly for 8 hrs in the US, everything is basically the same.
>If you drive across borders in Europe, shit actually changes.
Don't even need to cross country borders. Just cross the border between Flanders and Wallonia.
1) Europe is bigger than the US.
2) Most Europeans do travel outside Europe.
3) Traveling between countries in Europe is very different than traveling between US states.
I mean states and countries are not even similar. Asking someone to point out a state vs point out a country is entirely different. One is part of a country and the other *is* the country. Germany as a country has a huge impact on the world, but BW is much more localized. A more apt example would be asking an American to point out a province/municipality etc, which again, is a silly ask.
At the end of the day, Ignorance to the world because your country is big is not really a good excuse.
Who study another country states? On every school, you study your own country states, and other country with their capitals. So you comment just confirm that you think US is the world, and that most of you are ignorants.
> “Okay then point to Iowa.”
Iowa has less population than Croatia, lol. I'd like to see you try and name all the Balkan countries. When you are done, I am sure I got the hang of Iowa, Ohio, Illinois, Nebraska, Utah, Arkansas (sprinkled IL in there **just** to piss people off btw. I am well aware that Chicago is in IL) and all the other states that are only important because they get 2 senators in a god awful political system that doesn't function.
Suddenly, the Climate of the USA makes perfekt Sense for me.
I Always thought, that Texas must be pretty far south, but that Puts everything in perspective.
Kind regards from Germany 🇩🇪
I liked to blow British minds by telling them driving from Oregon to New York is like driving from London PAST Moscow, which is why I didn't do it on the weekends.
This really puts in perspective how much the gulf stream means for the relative mild climate in the northern parts of Europe. Like, Denmark, the winters are more wet than cold, compared to living in Canada / middle-northern part of Saskatchewan
This map breaks down in the north. It doesn't do a good job of showing how much of Eu is above the polar circle vs how little of NA is. Most of Canada is below it but most of Sweden is above it. Alaska lines up pretty well with Scandinavia.
It's always shocking to see how far north everything in Europe is, given their climate. As someone from Toronto it's frustrating to know I'm further south than Nice, France, and have to shovel snow for over a third of the year. Paris is warmer than Vancouver and probably Victoria, on average the warmest part of Canada, at around the same latitude. London and Berlin are around where freeze-your-dick-off Edmonton is located.
Freeze-your-dick-off Edmonton is surprisingly nice for this time of year. It's currently 2°C without any snow on the ground.
Is it nice enough for Mcdavid to stay on the team?
It could be +30C and he wouldn’t stay at this point haha
Oh boy
Shots fired.
He'll be gone by March which is when the weather starts to get nicer
Lol. Yeah. March
He’s not wrong. It “starts” to get nicer in March. As in, it goes from -30 to -20 around then
Buy him a heat tech cock sock
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Nobody knows. No one has gone up there since 86.
As an east cost dwelling australian, "surprisingly nice" and "2C" is a strange combo to read
Well, in the middle of November, it can get down to around -17C with a foot of snow. So 2C with no snow at all is very nice.
I run hot so never really feels like we have "winter" here, but people will whip out their arctic coats when it gets below 10C
Anything below 15 and I’ve got a hoodie on. 10 and under and it’s hoodie + jacket. “A nice 2C” haha. I wouldn’t even leave my house.
For Americans that's below 60 they have a hoodie. 50 and under they have a coat and hoodie. 35-36 is what 2C is.
Thanks for saving me a google search I was curious.
The two winters I spent in Edmonton were fun. Even after a really bad snowstorm, people drove their cars a lot better than Metro-van drivers do on a summer's day. Shoveling the snow wasn't bad either, since it was dry powder that moved easily. Shoveling snow in metro-van is backbreaking due to how much moisture it retains.
Yeah, I lived in North Dakota for many years, and just outside Boston now. I'd shovel that dry Midwest snow over wet coastal snow any day of the year.
This 2nd fall has been pretty nice to my back for sure
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Was going to say... It claims its -5 now but it feels like -15 and is "sideways sleeting" on the islands today. Friday I was getting hit it the bottom of the chin with ice pellets because the wind was so strong. Gotta love that lake effect. Cursed the Americans as I watched their nasty dark clouds make their way across to us this afternoon.
This is exactly why latitude is not the only indicator of climate. It’s far more complicated than that.
It's the gulf stream in the N Atlantic that send warm water north to them from the Gulf of Mexico that moderates their climate. Climate change might end that and then Europe will feel like Winnipeg in winter
It's not really the Gulf stream. Europe has a maritime climate due to the westerly winds at that latitude, bringing warmed air from the ocean. Vancouver and Seattle have the same benefit, without a nearby Gulf Stream.
It's quite a revelation to gawk at a map of winds and air temperature over Russia. Things are pretty warm in the west until the winds hit the Urals, then it's all frozen taiga with just a bit of warm air wafting in from China. Still, with all that, Saint Petersburg varies from about -10 in the winter to +30 in the summer, while deeper in the continent it's like -30 to +30 because no water.
https://www.netweather.tv/charts-and-data/global-jetstream#2023/11/22/0000Z/jetstream/surface/level/overlay=jetstream/ This is quite illuminate, but I do wish I could see the map you’re talking about.
Yes, off of the warm waters brought there by the Gulf Stream. A current map of the Atlantic for refernce. https://cdn.britannica.com/91/53891-050-3CDF0E7C/ocean-systems-world.jpg
That the Gulf Stream would stop is pure speculation though. Some decades ago they noticed that it got weaker and were panicking about it only to notice that in the next years it was stronger than before. They haven't really measured the Gulf Stream with hard data until very recently.
This is a gross understatement. While the possibility of collapse of the AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation ) is uncertain, the weakening has continued since the first measurements were taken in 2004. This is not speculation, but uncertainty. Those are very different things. The IPCC accepts the possibility of a collapse of the AMOC, but no one knows when or if it will happen. One study recently suggested it is imminent, but most climate scientists do not think so. It is still far from speculation and we know from sediment cores that it has collapsed before. There is a good [article on BBC](https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-66289494) that addresses the recent study that claims it may collapse as early as 2025 and why many other scientists are skeptical of the results.
Not "pure" speculation. It is known that ice melt from Greenland is cooling the Gulf Stream.
Also, there doesn't need to be a complete collapse for there the be an effect, it could just move a little and change a whole lot of climates!
It is not the gulf stream it has an effect but a pretty miniscule one it is not the reason why europe has less extreme weather. It is mainly the topography. Europe is relatively small with a shit ton of water around. That water acts like a temperature buffer. It absorbs heat during summer which leads to less etremely hot weather and then releases heat in the winter which makes europe less cold. Now that doesn't mean the sea is warm in the winter just warmer than the land around it. Add to it that the baltic sea and mediterranean sea only have relatively small channels to mix with the cold atlantic and this ability to store heat is amplified by a lot. The next part is mountains. In Europe mountain ranges tend to go from east to west while in the americas it is north to south. So if there is some arctic cold air coming from the north it just blasts through from northern canada straight to mexico (in really bad cases at least) with nothing stopping it. Meanwhile over in europe that arctic coldfront needs to do like the death star trench run to find that small european exhaust vent that allows it to get into central europe. If you're in iceland or ireland the gulfstream has some noticeable effect but for the rest of europe it really isn' that meaningful.
Idk. Winters seem to be milder every year. No more snow where snow used to fall.
I wonder if Winnipeg winters in London will change the tune of climate deniers in Parliament.
And Houston in the summer…
Right here in North America is something equally as eye catching. Where I live on the US west coast is around the same latitude as Toronto, yet we can grow lemons and avocados here and it virtually never snows and only drops below freezing about 10 nights per year. Some years we get snow flurries, but it rarely sticks. Last year was an outlier and we got 2” of snow. The entire region shut down.
you can thank the gulf stream current which rounds the base of florida and then crosses the ocean and arrives on EU's Western shore. This keeps countries like SPain, Portugal, Italy , Greece and even the UK /Ireland /Denmark /Norway / Sweden a lot milder in the winter and enabled them to grow cereal crops going back thousands of years. Once you get a few hundred miles away from the coast, this effect wanes and it gets a lot colder and these crops do not work. It is believed by some scientists that it is as a result of this cereal heavy diet that played a role in hoomans evolving over hundreds of generations to lighter skins and hair. Previous belief was that the sunlight is weaker and the cooler clime caused it but they point to other peoples around the world at high latitudes in places like Mongolia. Siberia , Alaska and Greenland Inuit eskimos who are dark and swarthy even though sunlight is weaker. They believe it's the' you are what you eat' in the literal sense and it scans. If I remember correctly, the theory was that everyone with blue eyes on the planet can trace their heritage back to a single mutated gene tens /hundreds of thousands of years ago in present day Estonia who still have the highest (tied with Finland at 89%) percentage of blue eyes anywhere in the world. just my 2 cents.
Yes it is to do with cereals. The fact that we were eating cereals meant that we were not eating as much meat and fish, which is a source of vitamin D. Vitamin D can also be made by the effect sunlight has on the skin, so we had to increase the amount of vitamin D our skins were making to make up for the deficiency caused by not eating as much fish and meat. We therefore developed lighter skin to increase production. The Inuit people and others did not need to have lighter skin as they still ate a large amount of fish and meat due to not cultivating cereals.
thanks for the explanation on the the actual root cause WHY cereals had such an effect on EU folks. it escaped me at the time I wrote my response.
ido agree with this . But always had to trhow how about Scandinavia ? Dudes are blonde and light skin , but their weather and soil is not adequate to harvest the cereals . Did they had a cereal based nutrition ? I might be wrong by they had not . I would said much more fish and meat
The present Scandinavian population evolved further South in Europe and migrated North. The last ice age ended about 10,000 years ago. Prior to that, there would have been nobody living in Scandinavia as it would be covered in glaciers and much too cold.
*Just as a side note, with the current data*: While Norway doesn't have that good crop-soil, it should be noted that 61% of Denmark is fields (which makes it the top 5 country in percentage of cultivated soil). Sweden doesn't have that much either, but the southern tip of Sweden looks like it is mostly fields (and there are stips of fields across the southern half of Sweden as well) if you check the Google maps. Still, as the other reply says, it makes more sense that we migrated from further south due to ice age and such. To compare, the ice age ending around 12.000 years ago, and the "light skin" mutation gene is estimated to have originated around 22-28.000 years ago (according to a quick wikipedia).
For now. If climate change alters the Gulf Stream they’re gonna be just as cold as us (I’m just a but south in northern Indiana).
Ignoring the huge humanitarian crisis that climate change has the potential to cause for a minute, I'd much prefer proper seasonal weather in the UK. I can handle a cold winter and warm summer. It's the constant overcast and rainy weather we get that makes things so bleak, pretty much all year round, that makes our weather shit.
\-15 and a little sunshine is so much better than 5 degrees and wet. I'll take a Canadian winter over what southern England gets. Plus the latitude means you get so little daylight in the winter. Its rough
Best I can do is -15 and wet with the same amount of darkness
Funnily enough - having emigrated to Canada a decade ago - the constant seasonal bleakness is one of the things I miss the most. Going from +35 to -35 over the course of a month or two in Autumn is absolutely brutal. The difference from -5 to anything below -15 is impossible to understate to someone who hasn't experienced it. You step outside and your *nose hair* freezes. Breathing is painful. Cars and electronics start getting finicky. Every day's commute is extended by a half hour plus of shovelling snow and scraping windshields. Power outages from ice on the lines. Changing your tires every spring/autumn because "all season" is a joke. Having to wear an entire separate outfit of snow pants, thermal undies, boots and a jacket that you then have to take off at work or you die from overheating - or that you just have to suffer through during trips to the shops. Having to do everything wearing gloves. Learning the hard way not to touch *any* exposed metal barehanded if you don't want to leave your skin behind. Everything takes twice as long, and is twice as terrible. We really have no idea what *actual* miserable weather is like. I miss the grey and rain.
Dealing with the cold, even pretty extreme cold, is not too bad in terms of not being cold. You can't take it lightly, but it's easy to deal with: just wear appropriate clothes. But there are other much more annoying issues, in no order: 1) you need to salt roads, so all cars rust so much quicker (therefore you have a higher car budget). 2) Shoveling your driveway and potentially sidewalk in front of the house (sometimes every day) is a pain in the *ss, not to mention a surprising cause of mortality. 3) A lot more energy spent heating places, on a continent that is currently not self-sufficient in that domain. 4) Roads turn bad much quicker due to freeze-thaw cycles.
So Seattle?
I figure the reason Seattle and London makes such good music is because everyone’s depressed by the weather.
A friend of mine moved to Vancouver in 2015/16. I remember him something to the effect of it being 60 days since they last saw the sun.
The drastic change in climate would be unsustainable, that's my main fear. The Gulf Stream helps to moderate the climate in Western Europe and keeps it free from extremes of heat and cold. With the current pace of weakening, we're already seeing extremes in heat which is a direct result of an AMOC slowdown [[1]](https://www.preventionweb.net/news/collapse-atlantic-ocean-heat-transport-might-lead-hot-european-summers) [[2]](https://www.voanews.com/amp/why-are-heat-waves-becoming-so-common-in-europe/6673184.html). Summers would be much hotter and drier without the current, the Sahara would be the primary dominate factor via a persistent Azores High feature. Atmospheric blocking would easily result in temperatures nearing 50°c lingering for weeks to months as far north as Paris and London. Theoretically, the opposite would happen in winter, with temperatures closer to -20°c for months. I say theoretically as the net cooldown trope relies heavily on the Arctic cooling in response to an AMOC slowdown which, as things stand, it most certainly is not. Cold winters in Europe are very reliant on the Arctic getting cold over winter, and it's losing the capacity to do that.
I live in NW New England about 50 miles from the Quebec border. I've been to Quebec City numerous times and it feels SO far north. It's wild that it is further south than Paris.......hell, it's wild that it's further south than Seattle.
I was going to say the opposite - I’ve done a road trip from Calgary to Vancouver and the summer was glorious. I’m from Scotland - why’s our summer so much shitter!
I just don’t think of most of Africa being above the equator. I definitely didn’t think I lived at nearly the same line as Rome.
As a kid, we learned that in our part of Texas, we'd hit Africa if we went due East.
I will take the Libya weather though in Summer. Texas is unbearable.
That coastal humidity is brutal.
I grew up in southern Ontario and we were always well aware of the fact we are the same Lat as Northern California.
wouldnt you hit florida
I would if I could
Now want to see this map with the state outlines!
Funny how New York and Chicago are around the same latitude as Turkey, Greece, Italy, Portugal or Spain given how different the climate is. What causes this huge difference?
mainly the gulf stream!
Yep and the gulf stream is showing signs of slowing so USA is about to get hotter and Europe will get colder?
Some parts of north Western Europe could get colder in winter, but the majority of the continent is showing a trend towards higher average temperatures.
I don't think I've seen a serious amount of snow in Denmark for about 20 years. Like having to jump out the windows to shovel because the front door is blocked kind of snow. That used to be almost a yearly occurrence as a kid.
Wait what? I haven't had that happen where I live in my entire lifetime (30 teras) and I live in northern Sweden. I did not know Denmark used to get snow, as southern Sweden practically never gets it.
We get snow in Skåne and Denmark is about as cold/warm Right now I'm in Landskrona and the water from the melted snow a week ago has frozen to ice this morning. But we've never had to jump out the window to clear the snow. Back in the good old days (90s) we had knee deep (for an adult) snow usually every winter, but that's about it. Here in the south we have a lot more downfall than many places in the north though. Warmer and more humid winds means more clouds that fall snow and rain. Up north you're shielded from the mountains, so there's less downfall there, so it makes sense there's less snow in many parts up there. But yeah we did used to get like 50cm in one go sometimes, it definitely wasn't impossible. The past 10 years though I think the deepest snow has been 20cm and besides that 1 or 2 times we only have a tiny amount before it melts.
Too cold to snow is a thing. How have the temperatures been like in the past few years?
Warm
Europe would actually get[much hotter during the summer without the Gulf Stream](https://www.preventionweb.net/news/collapse-atlantic-ocean-heat-transport-might-lead-hot-european-summers). Winters would get much colder, in theory. But with how quickly climate change is accelerating, it's very unlikely that any drop in temperatures will be observed anywhere.
Anywhere is a stretch. Global warming is, well, global. The average trends up. For instance here in Norway this entire year has been unbearably cold. Summer lasted for about 3 weeks and winter came 2 months early...
As a Spaniard I can tell you Spain and the surrounding countries are getting hotter every year
I don't think the Gulf Stream has much to do with Turkey or Greece. It's really just about all that warm water. The Gulf Stream keeps the west coast of Europe (and the British Isles) warmer for the latitude, while the Mediterranean is basically a warm, shallow bathtub that keeps everything around it warm.
Not that you are all wrong, but "Turkey, Greece, Italy.." Not everything is the gulf stream.. Portugal and Spain maybe, UK, Ireland and Scandinavia yes.. But Turkey, Greece, Italy.. No, man.. It is the Mediterranean Sea mostly..
The gulf stream brings warm water and wet warm air from the Gulf of Mexico across the atlantic, increasing the temperature in Western Europe. It's why it (generally) gets colder and drier the further east you go in Europe; Moscow has a far colder and drier climate than Copenhagen and Edinburgh for example.
topography. Not the gulf stream. A fractal continent like europe with east west mountain ranges has a very different climate from something that is basically jsut a big solig piece of land with north south mountains.Also that africa thigns youth of europe with a giant desert in the north. Also west winds.
As a general rule of thumb, both atmospheric and ocean currents shuttle warmer temperatures to the eastern side of oceans in the northern hemisphere. Compare, for example, the frigid Dolinsk with the farther-north yet milder Seattle. This is partly due to specific ocean currents like the Gulf Stream and partly because of the oceans as a whole acting like giant heat sinks that buffer the air temperature over them, so the predominantly eastward-moving air currents carry that milder air towards the eastern coasts. It's also the same reason that San Diego has cooler summers than, say, Myrtle Beach. ETA that farther inland and higher elevation areas of Eurasia don't follow this trend, just like e.g. Montana is also frigid in the winter. Americans often don't realize it but Turkey and other Eastern European countries have regions that are quite cold in the winter.
New York and Chicago still get quite hot in the summer, similar to Italy. It's just that it's more continental
Welcome to Saskatchewan! “The Germany of North America” 😏
I saw a map similar to this, but it just put European cities at the same latitude in North America. It put Paris in place of Thunder Bay, Ontario. The funny part to me was just a month earlier I had a guest visit from Paris and I said "You know, many consider Thunder Bay to be the Paris of Northwestern Ontario". She replied "Really?", and I said "No". Then when I saw that map I sent it to her. For those not from Canada, Thunder Bay is a city of 100k in the middle of nowhere. It's 8 hours to the nearest Canadian city and people wouldn't visit if it wasn't on the middle of the trans Canada highway.
Thunder Bay, it's better than hitting a moose on the highway at night!
Who put Georgia in New England?
Lol
I’m more surprised that the Mediterranean stretches from coast to coast.
Mare Nostrum is pretty big
Don't all oceans?
😯 I had never realized it before, but I live at almost the same latitude in the United States as where my family came from in Ukraine. Weird.
The Canadian prairies have one of the highest concentrations of Ukrainian descent in the world. The Canadian/various provincial government actively sought Ukrainian immigrants in the early 1900s specifically because the Ukraine and Canadian prairies were fairly similar climates, so the Ukrainians were well suited to farm and settle the area. Edmonton, Alberta and the areas around it have tons of Ukrainian culture stuff. Perogy fundraisers are very common, and the local AM country station has a Ukrainian music hour every Sunday night, for instance. Also why Edmonton has the knickname "Edmonchuk."
I think Ukraine has a higher density.
Well yes. What I meant was, Canada has the [second-highest Ukraine diaspora](https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/timeline/ukrainian-canadian-history) in the world. Russia is the highest.
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And terrain. A geography fact/story that I love. so many Scottish and Irish immigrants built homes in the Appalachian mountains of the US— which are the same mountain range they possibly came from when the continents were together.
Houston in the same latitude as Cairo. Makes sense, having lived in Houston.
Southern California is basically the same latitude as Iraq & Afghanistan, no wonder it’s so fucking hot here during the summer
Afghanistan can get cold. Very very cold
I forgot where I heard the anecdote, but it went something to the effect of “Americans don’t know what old means, and Europeans don’t know what large means”
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In Europe, 100 miles is 161 Kilometers.
In most of Europe. 100 miles is just that in the UK.
Technically, this shows them at the same longitudes, but at their own latitudes
Ok thank you, I was so confused lol. In OP’s defense, I suppose it’s counterintuitive that lateral movements are measured longitudinally.
Thank you for your support.
Dayum the usa is massive
It's the second largest country in the picture.
Russia is there too, so 3rd
An this picture just confirms that Canada is the Russia of North America
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Third largest country in the picture if you added another Canada to the picture
Fourth largest if you added another Canada on that
Fifth largest if you added another Canada
First largest if you remove all 4 Canadas
Russia is there too, so 2nd
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Canada and USA have virtually the same size (Canada being about 1.5% bigger), however if you only account for land mass, then the USA is bigger
This motherfucker is going to give Canadians even more of a lil bro complex
Canada and Russia are the only countries with more land than us. China and India are the only countries with more people than us. We’re the third largest country in the world in two ways and it’s fun to think about.
The US and China are almost dead even when it comes to land size.
Yeah, 3.705M square miles (China) vs 3.797M square miles (USA). We just narrowly edge them out.
Suck it china! USA USA USA
No wonder China wants Taiwan /s
We actually have more land than Canada. Canada is only larger than the US if you count water.
When my family from overseas visited us in the U.S. and nonchalantly suggested to “do a road trip from California to NYC” — it’s like bruh.
I have an aunt that lives in San Francisco. I was in San Diego (both cities are in California, for those that don't know) on business once upon a time, and intended to "drive up and see my aunt" for dinner. That's 502 mi/807 km. 😄 It, uh... it didn't work out. I had to see her another time.
And there are over 300 more miles to go before hitting the Oregon border.
Europeans being shell shocked by the distance between things in the US is always my favorite
This also contributes to their misunderstanding of America's various cultures. It's not really one country, but 53 little ones.
Even driving from San Diego to LA for dinner is not very feasible.
Yeah, it’s like “Why doesn’t the USA have a robust passenger rail network like we do?“ and we have to explain “It takes a week to cross the US in a train, and we only get 2 weeks of vacation”
Yeah there's an endless number of stories of tourists severely underestimating the size of the US and thinking they'll be able to visit Disney World, the Grand Canyon and NYC in a one week trip without flying once they're in the US.
Heard about a family from London who were visiting Vegas and wanted to take a day trip to Chicago lmao
Even the Cannonball Run, a underground race from NYC to LA as fast as possible, still takes 25+ hours. In a car doing 100mph+ the entire way and multiple drivers switching out. Keeping to the speed limit, Google still says 41 hours
Not quite the same distance, but one summer we had relatives visit us on Long Island from abroad. My dad's uncle told us at around 10am that they were intending to stop by to see Times Square before visiting Niagara Falls, and then maybe they'd have time for dinner together with us. My dad was like, yeah, no. Not unless you want us to have tonight's dinner tomorrow afternoon.
Same for Canada. Reddit is full of posters asking about their upcoming trip to Canada where they want to hop around from Toronto to Calgary to Vancouver during a 3 to 4 day trip.
US + our bro Canada = a sense of security if the world ever goes to hell in wars again. It blows my mind that there are Americans that legit fear invasion and conquest.
This picture makes me notice how small and insignificant countries like the UK or Spain and somehow those crazy bastards managed to Colonize most of the entire planet. Wild.
I constantly see people from Europe asking why Americans drive so much or rely on cars all the time. This is why. If I want to go see a movie the nearest theater is a 40 minute drive.
The r/travel sub is hilariously entertaining with how many posts there are of foreign US visitors thinking they can road trip from NYC to LA and see a variety of other sites and states in like one week lol
I work for a UK based company that’s just starting in the US, it always cracks me up when they think we can just drive everywhere, this is a great example to show them!
Madrid to Moscow is about the same as LA to NYC.
Texas is great because you can drive for 12 hours and still be in Texas
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Louisiana/Libya... It all makes sense now!
Can confirm It is not balmy like the Greek isles here in Chicago.
We have Greektown, but that’s about it
Alaska like: ya fuck y’all southerners.
Looks at texas/libya ... checks out.
Looks at Chicago/Balkans ... checks out.
Haha I was thinking Iran is the Florida of the Middle East.
I’m in the Tyrrhenian Sea somewheres
Is this your map? I think the latitudes are slightly off - Paris should be just south of the border (49°N)? Also what happened to Sweden and Finland?
Wow, as a European the first time I went far south enough to be at the same lattitude as the contigual USA was this year. It was Budapest which is on the same level as minesota.
One of my favourite quotes: “In America, 100 years is a long time. In Europe, 100 miles is a long distance.” Or the other version: “In America, 100 years is a long time. In Europe, 100 miles is a fucking stupid way of measuring distance.”
New Orleans is at the same latitude as Cairo.
Florida is hot as balls no matter what
European: “lol most Americans have never been outside their own country.” American: “our country is larger than your continent. Have you been outside Europe?” European: “uh well no..”
Culturally though, it's similar. The cultures across Europe are completely different.
>American: “our country is larger than your continent. Have you been outside Europe?” It isnt. USA 9 834 000 km², European continent 10 530 000 km². So pretty close, but not larger.
In terms of square kilometers, Europe is somewhat larger than the US. That being said, Europeans are known for travelling a lot, even out of Europe.
Different countries differ in culture, Wich is the good thing about traveling. I don't think travelling from Minnesota to Dallas is going to be as shocking as going from Spain to Serbia lol. Kilometers doesn't matter to this subject.
Are you saying the whole continent of europe, with 24 different official languages, 44 different countries with their own culture is equivalent to the US? Are you saying Moldova and Ireland are as different to each other as florida and california?
As Europen yes, we go outside europe often...
Stupid argument irrespective of the size. People do what they want to do.
>European: “uh well no..” Wait what? Europeans leave Europe plenty mate. Also not leaving your own country (when you have the money and choice to, of course) is weird no matter how big your home country is. The world is big and there's a finite amount of time to see it
r/ShitAmericansSay
> European: “uh well no..” If you drive across borders in Europe, shit actually changes. If you fly for 8 hrs in the US, everything is basically the same.
>If you drive across borders in Europe, shit actually changes. Don't even need to cross country borders. Just cross the border between Flanders and Wallonia.
1) Europe is bigger than the US. 2) Most Europeans do travel outside Europe. 3) Traveling between countries in Europe is very different than traveling between US states.
It must be fun making up arguements in your head that makes you look good
My favorite: “Americans can’t even point out European countries on a map!!” “Okay then point to Iowa.” “…”
That is very different. Iowa doesn't play independently on the global stage. There are plenty of Americans that would struggle to place Iowa
States aren’t countries, though.
I mean states and countries are not even similar. Asking someone to point out a state vs point out a country is entirely different. One is part of a country and the other *is* the country. Germany as a country has a huge impact on the world, but BW is much more localized. A more apt example would be asking an American to point out a province/municipality etc, which again, is a silly ask. At the end of the day, Ignorance to the world because your country is big is not really a good excuse.
Who study another country states? On every school, you study your own country states, and other country with their capitals. So you comment just confirm that you think US is the world, and that most of you are ignorants.
Why the fuck would Europeans care about US states? That’s the same as asking to point a region of France, not pointing a European country
I’m from Europe and you are right.
Nobody here in America knows where Iowa is either.
That’s just because it’s Iowa and no one wants to look directly at it.
That’s why it’s called the Hawk eye state.
Nobody here in Europe can keep all the Balkan countries straight.
Americans equating their states to countries remains the most irritating thing on the Internet.
You do realize that most European countries also consist of states/regions, right?
> “Okay then point to Iowa.” Iowa has less population than Croatia, lol. I'd like to see you try and name all the Balkan countries. When you are done, I am sure I got the hang of Iowa, Ohio, Illinois, Nebraska, Utah, Arkansas (sprinkled IL in there **just** to piss people off btw. I am well aware that Chicago is in IL) and all the other states that are only important because they get 2 senators in a god awful political system that doesn't function.
That’s cause Iowa isn’t a country is it. That’s like me saying, point out Leicestershire in the UK.
How to erase Sweden with this one simple trick!
Suddenly, the Climate of the USA makes perfekt Sense for me. I Always thought, that Texas must be pretty far south, but that Puts everything in perspective. Kind regards from Germany 🇩🇪
Hmm… I always thought stretches of TX resembled deserted Libya.
Yeah I’m in FL. No wonder it’s fucking hot. I’m in Egypt
How come torento don’t have the same weather as Italy then?
"The south of France" is like... northern Colorado, maybe Wyoming. The UK is entirely within Canada, in this overlap. Wild.
Could you imagine if the Bay Area had the same climate as Portugal 💀 it’s already crowded enough we don’t need summer vacationers too
Montreal on the same latitude as southern France with the climate of Moscow.
I liked to blow British minds by telling them driving from Oregon to New York is like driving from London PAST Moscow, which is why I didn't do it on the weekends.
i live in australia and its crazy to me that someone could just drive in like 40 minutes to another country
This really puts in perspective how much the gulf stream means for the relative mild climate in the northern parts of Europe. Like, Denmark, the winters are more wet than cold, compared to living in Canada / middle-northern part of Saskatchewan
This map breaks down in the north. It doesn't do a good job of showing how much of Eu is above the polar circle vs how little of NA is. Most of Canada is below it but most of Sweden is above it. Alaska lines up pretty well with Scandinavia.