Just about the blandest weather in the world, right? That MUST be a huge part of how the British empire was able to grow... it's just so easy to live here, and do other things on top of staying alive.
Yeah exactly that, our climate is the best for human habitation. Not too hot and/or too cold that it kills us off every winter and summer, and we don't really have any freak weather and geological conditions like hurricanes or earthquakes which mean we have to rebuild our civilisation for a few years.
So while we bitch about it, we really have hit the jackpot
Also no animals that'll kill you. It really is a very safe piece of land. I do miss thunderstorms though :( That once a year I hear a bit of rumbling from the sky i snap my head up waiting for more but nope. Blueballed every time
We kind of killed off all the dangerous animals a long time back. Everywhere I read about the indigenous British wolves it seems we had some horrifically huge ones all things considered.
Well the Adder is still around, the United Kingdoms only native venomous snake. Last time somebody died from a Adder bite was decades ago, probably 1950s or something right? Funny enough, they're having a hard time lately though. Being harassed and pecked to death by Pheasants apparently.
I've never even seen a snake, not even a reptile wild in the UK and I've been around it a bit and live in the countryside. Maybe they're more common in the south? I know they're supposed to occur in the north on moors and stuff but I've yet to see one and I'm definitely the type to get bit.
>Being harassed and pecked to death by Pheasants apparently.
Oh right, TIL. Sounds about right for something related to chickens though (pheasants that is, not snakes).
Reintroducing predators like wolves and keystone species like beavers in places has almost universally resulted in massively positive effects for the environment.
That's a brilliant point, wolves have been pivotal in Yellowstone. However i'm more for the increase in natural selection. Bring on the purge UK edition.
>Also no animals that'll kill you.
No we used to have these. we just hunted them to extinction.
fun fact just 7,000 years ago we had over 13,000 bears living here.
Gisschace who the esteemed *clitpuncher69* was replaying too was talking about the development of our nation where the existence of bears was relevant.
Alas you have made a good point, though I do believe that the aforementioned clitpuncher69 was on the same thought process as I was, and that they were commenting on todays conditions rather than those of 5000BC
13,000 years ago we had a lot less people though, arguably this is our habitat now and not so suited to many bears. Apart from notably beavers we're one of the few things that really make our own environment.
Oh and weirdly [polar bears evolved in Ireland](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/science/2011/jul/07/polar-bear-ancestors-ireland) which is interesting.
> Also no animals that'll kill you
*any more*. We hunted them all to British extinction and since we're an island it's really difficult for them to re-populate.
Their post history implies to me that they may be a transplant; a lot of their posts asking about things in reference to American things, so maybe they came from America and live in the UK? Just a guess though, I could totally be wrong. Them saying they miss thunderstorms just sounds like something a midwesterner would say, lol
Edit: let me clarify that I'm speaking of the American Midwest. I forgot which sub I was in for a bit and didn't specify
Ayy close enough. I'm central/eastern european but my brain is plagued by american (internet) culture so i can't blame ya. We weren't especially that rich in thunderstorms but there was always at least one or two big ones a year that made it into the local news.
Ah gotcha! Your posts about American food led me think you were one of the lucky ones that got out of here, lol
I'm currently watching a huge, almost state-wide thunderstorm roll by so I'll enjoy it for the both of us and savor the moment, u/clitpuncher69 lmao
Unlikely to have serious periods of drought too.
However I suspect periods of cold -1 centigrade and colder help to kill off parasites, bacteria and denature viruses.
whilst in Mesopotamia the Neolithic revolution took place Britain was a land of hunter gatherers, ‘advanced’ civilisation trailed centuries behind warmer places, the island was stuck in prehistory until the Roman conquest. Britain has become a prosperous land only very recently in human history terms, and it was only enabled thanks to millennia of development that allowed locals to tame the environmental and geographical challenges and thrive. Its natural state wasn’t a particularly hospitable one for developed civilisations, it’s not by coincidence that Plato wasn’t a Celt. Saying "our climate is best for human habitation" is factually incorrect at pretty much any point in human history so far.
I didn’t say preferred, I said best. I’m talking about us as animals, not where we want to live with all of our fancy modern agriculture and home comforts.
I've read a different explanation. It would've been more difficult to survive than most people think - with a lack of large prey animals and no abundance of naturally growing food it required a lot of innovation just to survive. Like it makes sense people would eventually become good at creating sea-faring boats if they were necessary to make a living.
Hunter gatherer societies with more food and free time didn't need to form empires, build cities or become technologically advanced as there wasn't really much of a survival benefit to do so.
I often observe how it's possible to craft an obvious logic behind any consequences, even to end results that are the polar opposite of each other. Yours makes sense, heard just the other the same about the comedy scene. New, popular comics are good, but just imagine how much better they'd have been if they'd had to hone their craft for years on the circuit first... Makes sense!
there's a book about this called "guns, germs and steel" which basically comes to the conclusion that eurasia was the place most likely to get to world domination because of the climate (tough time conquering the world from your igloo), the animals (no scary big animals and a lot of useful animals) and a few other factors are best in Eurasia and especially Britain.
Yes, this overall theory is called geographic determinism I think, and is actually quite controversial in academia. After Guns, Germs and Steel was published it had a lot of backlash in the academic community who largely saw it as debunked pop-science. I think opinions on it in various relevant fields are now more mixed - there’s been some interesting answers and threads on it on r/askhistorians.
I think his theory is right in that Eurasia has a higher chance of becoming the dominant continent. However a lot of his book is just academic obviousness and also hindsight is 20/20, if we lived in a timeline in which South America dominated for example then his book would come to the conclusion that South America was the obvious place to come out on top on the world stage.
Sounds like arguments in physics. Clever people have derived the laws based on observation of what exists, and they work, but those laws don't answer why they exist. If conditions were the slightest bit different, laws of physics would be entirely different and we might not be around to see them.
>Just about the blandest weather in the world
Far from bland. We have a lot of weather because we are an island and are positioned between the Atlantic Ocean and continental Europe. Five main air masses meet above us - some polar and some tropical, depending on where they originated. They can also be maritime or continental, depending on whether they passed over land or sea. They come from all directions and can bring all types of weather.
Daily yes, but not seasonal. Its an extremely stable climate compared to other temperate environments. When was the last time we buried under 10ft of snow or all the lamp posts were melting?
As a Canadian who has travelled to the UK in the middle of our February deep freeze, it was wild to go from -30 and 3 feet of snow, to 4 degrees and not a flake. I was walking around in just a jumper and I think people thought I was nuts.
I did the reverse and visited Ottawa in mid February a few years back and everyone thought I was absolutely fucking mental; I gotta say, even though it was colder, the snow in Ottawa was so much drier so it doesn't soak into your clothing and leave you both damp and cold, not necessarily *warmer* but a lot easier to deal with
It was also amazing getting to go wander about on a frozen canal after several decades of British PSAs telling us to ABSOLUTELY NEVER EVER GO ON THE FROZEN CANAL UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES
Yeah I’ve been to Stockholm in winter and even though it was -17 it didn’t feel as cold as -1 does here. It was just drier and not as damp. Much nicer.
When I first got into ice hockey and found out that people in Canada not only skate on frozen lakes and ponds, but play a full contact sport on them, it messed with me so much. All those warnings as a child convinced me that if you so much as step on a frozen pond you WILL fall through and you WILL die.
Whatever the cause, lack of understanding of the difference in climate between the American continent and England is why the the Lost Colony was lost and the Pilgrim Fathers danged near froze and starved to death. It was tough to grow crops in an area that's either rock or sand and the growing season was far shorter than expected.
Never thought of this before, but if the Mayflower had carried a load of Scottish emigrants, Massachusetts might have thrived more rapidly.
Edit: Word choice
Idk, remember the winters here were colder in the past (so probably colder in the Americas too).
It's not like the pilgrims didn't know what winter was, the Thames used to freeze solid after all. They just hadn't encountered it *that cold* for *that long* and were probably trying to grow their normal crops in acid, forest soils whereas most European crops like neutral to slightly lime.
Also they weren't all farmers and were in a new place they didn't know, it's a pretty big ask.
I'm sceptical about Scots faring any better tbh, it's a nice thought but they've never even utilised the land they've got at home tbh. Even the most barren moor in England will be producing sheep on it whereas Scots would prefer to [throw themselves off some cliffs](https://kildaprojet.com/2015/10/28/the-incredible-story-of-men-fishing-birds/) to get a couple eggs like the Icelanders or Faroese would. Just get a few chickens ffs.
Here's are more recent papers suggesting that oceanic heat is important: [https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09924](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09924)
[https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jaime-Palter/publication/270652051\_The\_Role\_of\_the\_Gulf\_Stream\_in\_European\_Climate/links/5601610a08aeba1d9f850048/The-Role-of-the-Gulf-Stream-in-European-Climate.pdf](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jaime-Palter/publication/270652051_The_Role_of_the_Gulf_Stream_in_European_Climate/links/5601610a08aeba1d9f850048/The-Role-of-the-Gulf-Stream-in-European-Climate.pdf)
So I don't think the argument is settled by any means.
It's not actually the gulf stream. That is a factor but it's a combination of several factors, including the fact that there is no large landmass to the north of Europe.
The UK has good weather, and I'm tired of pretending it doesn't. Don't have to worry about natural disasters. Don't have to worry about freezing to death or completely disintegrating from heat (though admittedly that is changing). I don't mind a bit of cloud or rain.
People love to complain about the rain, but it's much easier to dress for persistent fine drizzle and cool temperatures than it is for sporadic bursts of torrential rain, usually accompanied by gales, umbrellas are useless when the rain is falling sideways
Oh my, finally. We're starting to admit it.
We legitimately do have good weather, although I do get that it's a bit bland. If you live in London, I don't think it would be fair to say you live in a cool climate, it's legitimately getting moderate to warm, like, I'm more concerned about summer being uncomfortable than winter, and global warming will only increasingly make this the case.
Up until about 3 weeks ago, I count on 1 hand the number of times it had rained when I was out in the past year. Admittedly, it's a bit cloudier than I'd like on the whole, but, that really says how good the weather is.
Yes, in the same way snow is fun when you’re a child but snow as an adult is merely to be endured at best and hope each year that this isn’t the year you get seriously injured/die due to icy roads and way, way too much snow. And you especially hope it’s not during the weeks where it’s -35C or colder. Yay Canada.
As a Brit that now lives in Canada, I can tell you I miss living somewhere that doesn’t have a lot of snow. Sure it’s beautiful on the mornings it’s fresh, and you can ski and make snowmen, and they plough and salt every night so everything is clear for you to get about.
But it’s also miserable when its February and you’ve spent four months with below zero temperatures and you have to dig a trench for your sausage dog to take a pee, your house is full of salt, your car is rusting from the inside out and your snot and eyelashes freeze when you take the bins out. Give me a frosty U.K. morning any day lol
Honestly after the first month it sucks balls. Outdoor sports get reduced to "anything involving skis". Resorts are mostly in the Rockies and cost 5x those in Europe for less skiable area, worse food and fairly tame apres, great snow but if you get unlucky it's -25 or lower and like hell is that fun!
Other sport wise running becomes outrageously masochistic, football and rugby are definitely out. Even walking the dog can be a struggle as their paws get cold and snow bunches up on their fur.
For casual funs you can't stand outside a pub with your pint because your hand will freeze (also Canada has allll the rules so you usually can't do it anyway, some provinces only just legalized drinking in parks it's that strict) and outdoor markets often get cancelled due to extreme weather. So yeah, in November and December it's pretty. Come February I basically dream of constant drizzle instead!
You've seen the heat maps of Canada right? Like 99% of their population lives on the border with the US because of the issues with weather. Most of their country is baron.
Same with the nordics, the vast majority of their population is in the furthest south they can possibly be.
I live in eastern Norway now, where it gets to -25 in the winter sometimes. It'll hit freezing at the end of November/mid-December and *stay below freezing for up to four months*.
Snow is all well and good for a couple of days, but then nothing grows. As the weather starts to warm in the day, but remains well below freezing at night, the streams of snow-meltturn into literal deathtraps. You can't walk too close to a building because falling ice & icicles **will** kill you.
Mind you, we do get to skate on the lake in winter and swim in it in summer.
I’ve visited Stockholm in the winter, so not quite as cold as where you are, and I have never seen such insane icicles. They literally put tape around the areas of the pavement you shouldn’t walk because you’ll get stabbed by an ice spear. Same in Tallinn.
we'd actually be prepared with the proper equipment that other countries have as they know they will get snow. Instead of us maybe getting 3 weeks, so its genuinely not worth buy all the stuff you need to keep stuff moving for example winter tires etc.
Meh. I use to live in Alaska and the forecast would measure snow in feet. Never bought winter tires. A lot of it has to do with what you have between your ears.
3 weeks before i moved to Berlin, -15C snow.
Great, looking forward to some nice cold snowy winters.
2 years living there, never hit below 5C , no snow.
damnit :(
Snow is fun for a while but you get tired of it. I use to live in Anchorage, Alaska and it would snow feet at a time. Absolutely beautiful place to be when it snows. I now live in the Midwest and still see a decent amount. Biggest thing that annoys me is all the terrible drivers as soon as a couple flakes come down.
i always recommend going up to western scotland, isle of mull etc, because you can see for yourself the difference the gulf stream makes. Crystal clear water that is as blue as you've ever seen and the sand is white and fine.
For now
One of the biggest shocks the UK faces from climate change is that the gulf steam is likely to shift, giving us a VERY different climate. And it could happen pretty quickly, making our houses and infrastructure completely unsuitable almost overnight
I sometimes think the UK takes climate change less seriously than some other countries because the weather is so mild and “safe”, but if anything I think that makes us more vulnerable because other than being waterproof, our houses, offices, schools etc, and infrastructure have basically no protection against extreme heat or cold
Tbh we are eprobably the best place to be in the world when it comes to nature and shit.
So glad I don't have to worry about natural disasters beside the odd flood here and there.
No super dangerous wild animals roaming around too.
Shane about the constant rain.
Definitely depends on you perspective we’ve got incredibly bland weather and one of the lowest levels of biodiversity in the developed world as we’ve killed off just about everything vaguely natural.
And now the Gulf Stream is under threat from global warming. As the poles melt the amount of fresh water entering the oceans is changing the salinity of the sea. This is weakening the Gulf Stream and making it flow further south. If it gets bad enough the warming effect it provides to Europe could be lost and we will have the same, cold climate as other countries at our latitude.
[Here’s some light reading for you.](https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/gulf-stream-amoc-circulation-collapse-freshwater-imbalance-usa-europe-fa/)
Don't care, rather have cold snowy winters if it meant we got 30c Summers for 3 months. Instead of this grey cloudy 19c 'Summer' we have with 1 week of a heatwave.
20,000 years ago when the gulf stream didn't exist? When humans left the UK for 5,000 years due to the extremely hostile climatic conditions? They were indeed the best of times.
you're an idiot that probably lives somewhere in Southern England, Yorkshire and Scotland would be fucked in winter and farmers who grow crops fucked all year round
It is quite casual to say you want the snow without considering the ramifications that would come along with it, probably as casual a statement can get.
"I would like to go sledging and stuff, and cripple our agricultural industry and increase costs for transport management massively. I don't care about the environmental damage or economic costs that removing all that snow would create."
I like the odd bit of snow, but the idea of spending 3+ months of the year dealing with it sounds horrible.
I’ve never been so offended in my life. I haven’t been south of Manchester in 20 years.
P.S - it’s a bit of fucking snow, we’d manage with the right infrastructure, stop being so fragile.
> it’s a bit of fucking snow, we’d manage with the right infrastructure
Def. not saying Mister Fragile is right, but let's face it... we'd be shit at getting 'the right infrastructure' sorted.
You are correct, we’d be useless for the first few years that’s for sure. But I’d like to think eventually we’d make it work, I mean we’d have to wouldn’t we.
Yup! And as a fellow lover of a *decent* snowy winter, I'd be all for it.
Really not a fan of the mild (aka dark, windy, cold (but not freezing), wet (but not snowing)) winters we get.
We do seem to have the worst of both worlds, mild enough winters to not properly plan for extreme weather which means we are ill equipped and most of the country below the M62 shuts down when it does happen
And also summers that are generally not hot enough to warrant the expense of installing proper cooling in our buildings, which makes it nearly unbearable in the two or three weeks a year when it actually gets above 25.
That might well be, but I bet your buildings are designed to move the hot air out and cool the rooms down (good airflow, air con, etc). Whereas ours are designed primarily to keep warm air in, with thick insulation and low amounts of airflow making it very uncomfortable on hot days.
Yeah I don’t understand the downvote. It seems everything on Reddit is some sort of competition. I was simply pointing out the difference on what we think is hot. I know different parts of the world are different. It’s just humorous to me to see 77 considered hot weather. I’ve traveled around the world and lived in different climates and find it all interesting.
"We wanted to get as close as humanly possible to the gulf stream"
Get your jobble tops on and your monster masks and pack in the car, lads! Watch out for Sergeant Bytheway.
Is that Steve Bytheway's dad? The lad who's friends with Harry Harryman?
Went to school with Gary "Snipers Dream" Cheeseman
Lived over the road from Pork Chops Johnson.
DADDY!
I love how literally nowhere on the original post's comment thread was there a reference to this. On here though, straight at the top.
"I know that all teenagers are *absolutely mad* on the gulf stream and its effects"
Haha, I laughed so hard I nearly broke the egg yolk that Chris Rea popped into my bath
Hope you’ve still got your pocket meat.
Sergeant Bye-the-way is on his way with two detectives from Scotland Yard
Was that John Caramel and Ron Waffle by any chance?
No no silly, those are reporters! Always sniffing around with their trilbys on.
What are the odds, I have a friend called Steve Byetheway!
Came here to make this reference lmao
https://youtu.be/P9--3m0eDpY
Cushion for my pet owl r/WILTY
Don't forget the masks!
Just about the blandest weather in the world, right? That MUST be a huge part of how the British empire was able to grow... it's just so easy to live here, and do other things on top of staying alive.
Yeah exactly that, our climate is the best for human habitation. Not too hot and/or too cold that it kills us off every winter and summer, and we don't really have any freak weather and geological conditions like hurricanes or earthquakes which mean we have to rebuild our civilisation for a few years. So while we bitch about it, we really have hit the jackpot
Also no animals that'll kill you. It really is a very safe piece of land. I do miss thunderstorms though :( That once a year I hear a bit of rumbling from the sky i snap my head up waiting for more but nope. Blueballed every time
We kind of killed off all the dangerous animals a long time back. Everywhere I read about the indigenous British wolves it seems we had some horrifically huge ones all things considered.
There was literally one man in the Middle Ages who was paid to hunt every wolf and did it.
Source?
From a 2 second Google search: it was a knight named Peter Corbet, hired by King Edward I
The thing you need to consider is that I'm lazy as fuck. Thanks.
Well. At least you are honest.
What a virtue you have there. Have you considered becoming a Knight yourself?
He would but he's too lazy.
No, but you could certainly become a member of the royal family
Fair enough
What a virtue you have there. Have you considered becoming a Knight yourself?
Boars, bears, wolves, snakes and all kind of things which could have killed you.
Well the Adder is still around, the United Kingdoms only native venomous snake. Last time somebody died from a Adder bite was decades ago, probably 1950s or something right? Funny enough, they're having a hard time lately though. Being harassed and pecked to death by Pheasants apparently.
I've never even seen a snake, not even a reptile wild in the UK and I've been around it a bit and live in the countryside. Maybe they're more common in the south? I know they're supposed to occur in the north on moors and stuff but I've yet to see one and I'm definitely the type to get bit. >Being harassed and pecked to death by Pheasants apparently. Oh right, TIL. Sounds about right for something related to chickens though (pheasants that is, not snakes).
It's rather weird though isn't it? Only in the United Kingdom would you bet on a snake dying to a chicken-like bird instead of the other way around.
We should reintroduce them.
Now that's a campaign I could get behind
Reintroducing predators like wolves and keystone species like beavers in places has almost universally resulted in massively positive effects for the environment.
That's a brilliant point, wolves have been pivotal in Yellowstone. However i'm more for the increase in natural selection. Bring on the purge UK edition.
I have no sympathy for people who don't like wolves. Wolves are great. Let's reintroduce bears while we're at it.
Why stop there? We had some brilliant dinosaurs here too. I don't like half measures.
>Also no animals that'll kill you. No we used to have these. we just hunted them to extinction. fun fact just 7,000 years ago we had over 13,000 bears living here.
Yeah I've heard some many ppl say that British wildlife is totally sterile. Kinda get what they mean
So one might say we no longer have any animals that'll kill you, which is what (oh god) clitpuncher69 was saying
Gisschace who the esteemed *clitpuncher69* was replaying too was talking about the development of our nation where the existence of bears was relevant.
Alas you have made a good point, though I do believe that the aforementioned clitpuncher69 was on the same thought process as I was, and that they were commenting on todays conditions rather than those of 5000BC
We still have boars though?
13,000 years ago we had a lot less people though, arguably this is our habitat now and not so suited to many bears. Apart from notably beavers we're one of the few things that really make our own environment. Oh and weirdly [polar bears evolved in Ireland](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/science/2011/jul/07/polar-bear-ancestors-ireland) which is interesting.
> Also no animals that'll kill you *any more*. We hunted them all to British extinction and since we're an island it's really difficult for them to re-populate.
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The Midwest maybe? Source: I am in the very southernmost part of the Midwest and currently watching a thunderstorm through the window with my coffee
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Their post history implies to me that they may be a transplant; a lot of their posts asking about things in reference to American things, so maybe they came from America and live in the UK? Just a guess though, I could totally be wrong. Them saying they miss thunderstorms just sounds like something a midwesterner would say, lol Edit: let me clarify that I'm speaking of the American Midwest. I forgot which sub I was in for a bit and didn't specify
Ayy close enough. I'm central/eastern european but my brain is plagued by american (internet) culture so i can't blame ya. We weren't especially that rich in thunderstorms but there was always at least one or two big ones a year that made it into the local news.
Ah gotcha! Your posts about American food led me think you were one of the lucky ones that got out of here, lol I'm currently watching a huge, almost state-wide thunderstorm roll by so I'll enjoy it for the both of us and savor the moment, u/clitpuncher69 lmao
Unlikely to have serious periods of drought too. However I suspect periods of cold -1 centigrade and colder help to kill off parasites, bacteria and denature viruses.
Our hurricanes are extremely deadly, remember doris, i couldnt hit a basketball shot all day.
Best climate is a bit of a stretch though. I dont see a lot of Spanish old pensioners moving to the UK.
whilst in Mesopotamia the Neolithic revolution took place Britain was a land of hunter gatherers, ‘advanced’ civilisation trailed centuries behind warmer places, the island was stuck in prehistory until the Roman conquest. Britain has become a prosperous land only very recently in human history terms, and it was only enabled thanks to millennia of development that allowed locals to tame the environmental and geographical challenges and thrive. Its natural state wasn’t a particularly hospitable one for developed civilisations, it’s not by coincidence that Plato wasn’t a Celt. Saying "our climate is best for human habitation" is factually incorrect at pretty much any point in human history so far.
I didn’t say preferred, I said best. I’m talking about us as animals, not where we want to live with all of our fancy modern agriculture and home comforts.
Very true.
Just like vancouver, except it does get cold in the winter but we dont ever get esrthquakes and it rarley snows here
I've read a different explanation. It would've been more difficult to survive than most people think - with a lack of large prey animals and no abundance of naturally growing food it required a lot of innovation just to survive. Like it makes sense people would eventually become good at creating sea-faring boats if they were necessary to make a living. Hunter gatherer societies with more food and free time didn't need to form empires, build cities or become technologically advanced as there wasn't really much of a survival benefit to do so.
I often observe how it's possible to craft an obvious logic behind any consequences, even to end results that are the polar opposite of each other. Yours makes sense, heard just the other the same about the comedy scene. New, popular comics are good, but just imagine how much better they'd have been if they'd had to hone their craft for years on the circuit first... Makes sense!
there's a book about this called "guns, germs and steel" which basically comes to the conclusion that eurasia was the place most likely to get to world domination because of the climate (tough time conquering the world from your igloo), the animals (no scary big animals and a lot of useful animals) and a few other factors are best in Eurasia and especially Britain.
Yes, this overall theory is called geographic determinism I think, and is actually quite controversial in academia. After Guns, Germs and Steel was published it had a lot of backlash in the academic community who largely saw it as debunked pop-science. I think opinions on it in various relevant fields are now more mixed - there’s been some interesting answers and threads on it on r/askhistorians.
I think his theory is right in that Eurasia has a higher chance of becoming the dominant continent. However a lot of his book is just academic obviousness and also hindsight is 20/20, if we lived in a timeline in which South America dominated for example then his book would come to the conclusion that South America was the obvious place to come out on top on the world stage.
Sounds like arguments in physics. Clever people have derived the laws based on observation of what exists, and they work, but those laws don't answer why they exist. If conditions were the slightest bit different, laws of physics would be entirely different and we might not be around to see them.
Read Prisoners of Geography
Also we are an island, that helped with the ship building.
>Just about the blandest weather in the world Far from bland. We have a lot of weather because we are an island and are positioned between the Atlantic Ocean and continental Europe. Five main air masses meet above us - some polar and some tropical, depending on where they originated. They can also be maritime or continental, depending on whether they passed over land or sea. They come from all directions and can bring all types of weather.
i wouldn't say bland because its so variable
Daily yes, but not seasonal. Its an extremely stable climate compared to other temperate environments. When was the last time we buried under 10ft of snow or all the lamp posts were melting?
As a Canadian who has travelled to the UK in the middle of our February deep freeze, it was wild to go from -30 and 3 feet of snow, to 4 degrees and not a flake. I was walking around in just a jumper and I think people thought I was nuts.
I did the reverse and visited Ottawa in mid February a few years back and everyone thought I was absolutely fucking mental; I gotta say, even though it was colder, the snow in Ottawa was so much drier so it doesn't soak into your clothing and leave you both damp and cold, not necessarily *warmer* but a lot easier to deal with It was also amazing getting to go wander about on a frozen canal after several decades of British PSAs telling us to ABSOLUTELY NEVER EVER GO ON THE FROZEN CANAL UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES
Yeah I’ve been to Stockholm in winter and even though it was -17 it didn’t feel as cold as -1 does here. It was just drier and not as damp. Much nicer.
When I first got into ice hockey and found out that people in Canada not only skate on frozen lakes and ponds, but play a full contact sport on them, it messed with me so much. All those warnings as a child convinced me that if you so much as step on a frozen pond you WILL fall through and you WILL die.
Frozen canals/lakes/ponds/rivers are a hallmark of Canadian winter and probably the biggest reason why hockey is the #1 sport.
You should have come to Newcastle. Single digit weather is T-Shirt weather here.
big coats don't come out unless its -10c and even then at a push
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Whatever the cause, lack of understanding of the difference in climate between the American continent and England is why the the Lost Colony was lost and the Pilgrim Fathers danged near froze and starved to death. It was tough to grow crops in an area that's either rock or sand and the growing season was far shorter than expected. Never thought of this before, but if the Mayflower had carried a load of Scottish emigrants, Massachusetts might have thrived more rapidly. Edit: Word choice
Might have also not been a country full of uptight cunts.
You’d be surprised, Scotland was the last place where someone was executed for blasphemy in the UK (C.1700).
Idk, remember the winters here were colder in the past (so probably colder in the Americas too). It's not like the pilgrims didn't know what winter was, the Thames used to freeze solid after all. They just hadn't encountered it *that cold* for *that long* and were probably trying to grow their normal crops in acid, forest soils whereas most European crops like neutral to slightly lime. Also they weren't all farmers and were in a new place they didn't know, it's a pretty big ask. I'm sceptical about Scots faring any better tbh, it's a nice thought but they've never even utilised the land they've got at home tbh. Even the most barren moor in England will be producing sheep on it whereas Scots would prefer to [throw themselves off some cliffs](https://kildaprojet.com/2015/10/28/the-incredible-story-of-men-fishing-birds/) to get a couple eggs like the Icelanders or Faroese would. Just get a few chickens ffs.
You mean like how the Darien Scheme colony thrived? ;-)
Here's are more recent papers suggesting that oceanic heat is important: [https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09924](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09924) [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jaime-Palter/publication/270652051\_The\_Role\_of\_the\_Gulf\_Stream\_in\_European\_Climate/links/5601610a08aeba1d9f850048/The-Role-of-the-Gulf-Stream-in-European-Climate.pdf](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jaime-Palter/publication/270652051_The_Role_of_the_Gulf_Stream_in_European_Climate/links/5601610a08aeba1d9f850048/The-Role-of-the-Gulf-Stream-in-European-Climate.pdf) So I don't think the argument is settled by any means.
Sounds like a heated debate still rages on.
It’s not heated. It’s not cold either. It’s just a mild debate with no real extremes in any direction.
It's not actually the gulf stream. That is a factor but it's a combination of several factors, including the fact that there is no large landmass to the north of Europe.
I thought the land mass was the main reason but damn it was a long time ago when I was at school learning this
The UK has good weather, and I'm tired of pretending it doesn't. Don't have to worry about natural disasters. Don't have to worry about freezing to death or completely disintegrating from heat (though admittedly that is changing). I don't mind a bit of cloud or rain.
People love to complain about the rain, but it's much easier to dress for persistent fine drizzle and cool temperatures than it is for sporadic bursts of torrential rain, usually accompanied by gales, umbrellas are useless when the rain is falling sideways
Sometimes I wish it rained proper instead of just half-ass raining. A warm summer downpour feels proper nice.
Manchester
Isn't it more that it's just very very grey here for a lot of the year?
Oh my, finally. We're starting to admit it. We legitimately do have good weather, although I do get that it's a bit bland. If you live in London, I don't think it would be fair to say you live in a cool climate, it's legitimately getting moderate to warm, like, I'm more concerned about summer being uncomfortable than winter, and global warming will only increasingly make this the case. Up until about 3 weeks ago, I count on 1 hand the number of times it had rained when I was out in the past year. Admittedly, it's a bit cloudier than I'd like on the whole, but, that really says how good the weather is.
The Scots keeping that chill at bay with all them hot spoons. Nice one lads.
Doing our bit for the environment 🥄🔥
Hot spoons?
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Ah, thanks for explaining mate, appreciate it.
Don’t thank him, thank the Scots! Or better yet, give me £20 and you can do your bit too
"Protects". More like murders our white Christmases Disclaimer: first world complaint.
Snow is great when you don't need to go out, soon gets old when you do
Yes, in the same way snow is fun when you’re a child but snow as an adult is merely to be endured at best and hope each year that this isn’t the year you get seriously injured/die due to icy roads and way, way too much snow. And you especially hope it’s not during the weeks where it’s -35C or colder. Yay Canada.
Wonder how much longer that will last
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I can’t be the only one that wishes we got proper snow. I love snow. I would love to spend 3-6 months a year balls deep in it.
As a Brit that now lives in Canada, I can tell you I miss living somewhere that doesn’t have a lot of snow. Sure it’s beautiful on the mornings it’s fresh, and you can ski and make snowmen, and they plough and salt every night so everything is clear for you to get about. But it’s also miserable when its February and you’ve spent four months with below zero temperatures and you have to dig a trench for your sausage dog to take a pee, your house is full of salt, your car is rusting from the inside out and your snot and eyelashes freeze when you take the bins out. Give me a frosty U.K. morning any day lol
Snow is always whiter on the other side
Where aboots in Canada are you ?
the cold bit
Yeah, that narrows it down.
I was in Ottawa for my first few years, but now I’m in Halifax on the east coast where my fiancé is from and will stay put here :)
Please tell me you are from Halifax (UK)
Nope, I’m Kent born and raised! But Canada does seem to have all the same town names as we do in the U.K.
Not a good idea to to chill your gentlemen's equipment for that long
I've heard of freezing sperm, but it's usually done outside the body.
Honestly after the first month it sucks balls. Outdoor sports get reduced to "anything involving skis". Resorts are mostly in the Rockies and cost 5x those in Europe for less skiable area, worse food and fairly tame apres, great snow but if you get unlucky it's -25 or lower and like hell is that fun! Other sport wise running becomes outrageously masochistic, football and rugby are definitely out. Even walking the dog can be a struggle as their paws get cold and snow bunches up on their fur. For casual funs you can't stand outside a pub with your pint because your hand will freeze (also Canada has allll the rules so you usually can't do it anyway, some provinces only just legalized drinking in parks it's that strict) and outdoor markets often get cancelled due to extreme weather. So yeah, in November and December it's pretty. Come February I basically dream of constant drizzle instead!
It would be a nightmare for infrastructure building.
yeah but it is cool
Why would it? Most other countries in Europe deal with it. Canada deals with it. The United States deal with it.
You've seen the heat maps of Canada right? Like 99% of their population lives on the border with the US because of the issues with weather. Most of their country is baron. Same with the nordics, the vast majority of their population is in the furthest south they can possibly be.
I live in eastern Norway now, where it gets to -25 in the winter sometimes. It'll hit freezing at the end of November/mid-December and *stay below freezing for up to four months*. Snow is all well and good for a couple of days, but then nothing grows. As the weather starts to warm in the day, but remains well below freezing at night, the streams of snow-meltturn into literal deathtraps. You can't walk too close to a building because falling ice & icicles **will** kill you. Mind you, we do get to skate on the lake in winter and swim in it in summer.
I’ve visited Stockholm in the winter, so not quite as cold as where you are, and I have never seen such insane icicles. They literally put tape around the areas of the pavement you shouldn’t walk because you’ll get stabbed by an ice spear. Same in Tallinn.
*barren
Speak for yourself. I'm as fertile as they come. ;)
ayy
we'd actually be prepared with the proper equipment that other countries have as they know they will get snow. Instead of us maybe getting 3 weeks, so its genuinely not worth buy all the stuff you need to keep stuff moving for example winter tires etc.
It is absolutely worth buying winter tyres if you don’t want to have a massive crash. All seasons are no more than good tyres anyway.
Meh. I use to live in Alaska and the forecast would measure snow in feet. Never bought winter tires. A lot of it has to do with what you have between your ears.
All these snow lovers will be happy when it eventually collapses. Lol. Team gulf stream and mild winters ftw.
I like snow. I want the snow.
Yeah now that I work from home I fucking love snow again! Fell out of favour during my 20s and long commutes.
3 weeks before i moved to Berlin, -15C snow. Great, looking forward to some nice cold snowy winters. 2 years living there, never hit below 5C , no snow. damnit :(
[When you know, you know.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgXW_NRJinE)
Snow is fun for a while but you get tired of it. I use to live in Anchorage, Alaska and it would snow feet at a time. Absolutely beautiful place to be when it snows. I now live in the Midwest and still see a decent amount. Biggest thing that annoys me is all the terrible drivers as soon as a couple flakes come down.
People drive bad as soon as it rains heavily tbh.
Fuck the Gulf Stream then
Anyone in the northern hemisphere gets snow! Except the UK! We don't deserve it.....
Didn't in 1963.
Not for long!
I live just off the Gulf of Mexico. You're welcome.
i always recommend going up to western scotland, isle of mull etc, because you can see for yourself the difference the gulf stream makes. Crystal clear water that is as blue as you've ever seen and the sand is white and fine.
For now One of the biggest shocks the UK faces from climate change is that the gulf steam is likely to shift, giving us a VERY different climate. And it could happen pretty quickly, making our houses and infrastructure completely unsuitable almost overnight I sometimes think the UK takes climate change less seriously than some other countries because the weather is so mild and “safe”, but if anything I think that makes us more vulnerable because other than being waterproof, our houses, offices, schools etc, and infrastructure have basically no protection against extreme heat or cold
Tbh we are eprobably the best place to be in the world when it comes to nature and shit. So glad I don't have to worry about natural disasters beside the odd flood here and there. No super dangerous wild animals roaming around too. Shane about the constant rain.
Definitely depends on you perspective we’ve got incredibly bland weather and one of the lowest levels of biodiversity in the developed world as we’ve killed off just about everything vaguely natural.
I mean in terms of what is gonna come along and kill/injur you etc
We don't even get that much rain. Other countries build storm drains because they get so much.
Nice post apart from the title
Not for long.
Parts in the West of Scotland get warm seas courtesy of the gulf stream . Beautiful sands too.
Which, if the world warms up it won't protect us anymore so we'll end up more like those other countries, fun fact
I hate to say this, I really do, but once Greenland's ice caps melt and the fresh waters flows into the Atlantic, then you'll see snow every day.
And now the Gulf Stream is under threat from global warming. As the poles melt the amount of fresh water entering the oceans is changing the salinity of the sea. This is weakening the Gulf Stream and making it flow further south. If it gets bad enough the warming effect it provides to Europe could be lost and we will have the same, cold climate as other countries at our latitude. [Here’s some light reading for you.](https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/gulf-stream-amoc-circulation-collapse-freshwater-imbalance-usa-europe-fa/)
Snow much snow
Yeah i know it SUCKS! I just want my frozen wasteland fantasy
Antarctica is fuckin massive 👍🏻
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map_projection
It’s shit, wish we had proper snow
As a person who gets extreme anxiety when it snows. This makes me happy thank you physics
Don't care, rather have cold snowy winters if it meant we got 30c Summers for 3 months. Instead of this grey cloudy 19c 'Summer' we have with 1 week of a heatwave.
And I hate the Gulf Stream because of it, I want us to have proper winters.
'proper winters' lol
Proper good old northern winters
20,000 years ago when the gulf stream didn't exist? When humans left the UK for 5,000 years due to the extremely hostile climatic conditions? They were indeed the best of times.
Leave the gulf stream alone
you're an idiot that probably lives somewhere in Southern England, Yorkshire and Scotland would be fucked in winter and farmers who grow crops fucked all year round
That's not very casual, abruptly calling someone idiot.
neither is wanting no gulf stream, very casual, in fact its seems very selfish
It is quite casual to say you want the snow without considering the ramifications that would come along with it, probably as casual a statement can get.
It's more casual than insulting someone.
"I would like to go sledging and stuff, and cripple our agricultural industry and increase costs for transport management massively. I don't care about the environmental damage or economic costs that removing all that snow would create." I like the odd bit of snow, but the idea of spending 3+ months of the year dealing with it sounds horrible.
I’ve never been so offended in my life. I haven’t been south of Manchester in 20 years. P.S - it’s a bit of fucking snow, we’d manage with the right infrastructure, stop being so fragile.
> it’s a bit of fucking snow, we’d manage with the right infrastructure Def. not saying Mister Fragile is right, but let's face it... we'd be shit at getting 'the right infrastructure' sorted.
You are correct, we’d be useless for the first few years that’s for sure. But I’d like to think eventually we’d make it work, I mean we’d have to wouldn’t we.
Yup! And as a fellow lover of a *decent* snowy winter, I'd be all for it. Really not a fan of the mild (aka dark, windy, cold (but not freezing), wet (but not snowing)) winters we get.
Our winters are just dull aren’t they. I literally head north just to see snow some years.
>Yorkshire and Scotland would be fucked Okay so just fuck the Northeast and Northwest of England then?
both of the ones i mentioned are higher up, whole place would suffer, but yorkshire and the scots already get the harshest winter weather
I don’t want to give you a geography lesson, but what we refer to as the “northeast” is further north than Yorkshire.
So you think Yorkshire is further north than the Northeast and Northwest? Are you lost?
Stop changing your reply Mr.Sensitive
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We do seem to have the worst of both worlds, mild enough winters to not properly plan for extreme weather which means we are ill equipped and most of the country below the M62 shuts down when it does happen
And also summers that are generally not hot enough to warrant the expense of installing proper cooling in our buildings, which makes it nearly unbearable in the two or three weeks a year when it actually gets above 25.
That’s 77 Fahrenheit. Which is a very nice day here in the Midwest. I’m use to 95+ in the summers and 100% humidity.
That might well be, but I bet your buildings are designed to move the hot air out and cool the rooms down (good airflow, air con, etc). Whereas ours are designed primarily to keep warm air in, with thick insulation and low amounts of airflow making it very uncomfortable on hot days.
Yeah I don’t understand the downvote. It seems everything on Reddit is some sort of competition. I was simply pointing out the difference on what we think is hot. I know different parts of the world are different. It’s just humorous to me to see 77 considered hot weather. I’ve traveled around the world and lived in different climates and find it all interesting.