Dean's World

Darned Cold in Chicago and Thinking of Spring

Dave Schuler

How are the cold temperatures in Chicago, the tilt of the earth, its orbit around the sun, and the relative wealth of the Northern Hemisphere compared to that of the Southern Hemisphere related? Are they related?

More here.

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John_B (mail) (www):

It's cold in Florida, too, but I'm sure it's all relative. We're getting nighttime lows in the high 30s. That's pretty brisk for here. It should be back to the normal range (75-55) over the next few days, though.

It does mean that I have to turn the heat on and close my windows. That's as sure a sign of winter (beyond the annual migration of Snow Birds) as one could expect.

1.31.2007 2:39pm

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mikeca (mail) (www):

I suspect the fact that there is a lot more land in the Northern Hemisphere has something to do with the relative populations and wealth.

1.31.2007 3:42pm

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Dave Schuler (mail) (www):

To the best of my knowledge nowhere in the Southern Hemisphere pre-1500 CE has the population density come anywhere near what it was in large sections of the Northern Hemisphere i.e. coastal Europe and China in a comparable period. That's a statistic independent of land area and has everything to do with the development of agriculture.

1.31.2007 5:31pm

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Dean Esmay:

Population density? You guys realize how tiny we are compared to the land space available, don't you? And that we've got more land covered by forest in North America now than we did 100 years ago?

You could fit the entire world population within the 48 contiguous United States and still not be particularly crowded. And the humans merely displace other large mammals. I seriously doubt that population density of humans is anything but a minor factor.

1.31.2007 5:54pm

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Dave Schuler (mail) (www):

Au contraire, Dean. The researches of Linda and Robert Braidwood and their successors have suggested strongly that population pressures, particularly in coastal areas, were one of the critical factors behind the adoption of agriculture. See The Food Crisis in Prehistory: Overpopulation and the Origins of Agriculture.

1.31.2007 7:04pm

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Dean Esmay:

The dawning of agriculture unquestionably created massive changes in the environment and in human existence.

2.1.2007 6:37am

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