%0 Journal Article %1 Tarly2017Climate %A Tarly, Samwell %D 2017 %J Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of King's Landing %K silly climate climatechange model popsci %N 1 %P 1--9 %T The Climate of the world of Game of Thrones %U http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2017/december/climate-game-of-thrones-.html %V 1 %X It is well known that the climate of the world of Game of Thrones is chaotic; the durations of the seasons are essentially unpredictable (whatever the quack-scientists of King's Landing may try to tell you about predicting the onset of winter), and the seasons last several years. In this paper, inspired by the terrible weather on the way here to Oldtown, I attempt to understand and explain this fascinating and mysterious climate. I start by presenting observational evidence from various ancient manuscripts from the Citadel Library, and then, with the aid of a Climate Model, present a theory for the changing seasons based on variations in the orbit of the planet around the Sun. I then explore the implications of this theory for phenomena such as the likely attack plans of invading dragon hordes from Essos, the dominance of the seas by the Iron Fleet, the hibernation zones of White Walkers in summer, and the trading routes between Westeros and the Free cities across the Narrow Sea. Following this, I compare the climate of various regions in the world of Game of Thrones with those of the 'real' Earth, and show that the climate of The Wall in winter resembles very closely that of Lapland in Sweden/Finland, and Fairbanks, Alaska, whereas the climate of Casterly Rock, home of the scheming Lannisters, resembles that of Changsha in China, and Houston, Texas. Finally, I make a prediction of the ” Climate Sensitivity” of the world of Game of Thrones, the amount of global warming that would occur if concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were to be doubled (due to the recent increase in carbon dioxide and methane emissions from dragons, and the excessive use of wildfire). I show that this warming would likely be accompanied by sea level rise that could lead to the inundation of coastal cities, including the outskirts of King's Landing (which may be a good thing... unless you are unfortunate enough to live there).

@article{Tarly2017Climate, abstract = {It is well known that the climate of the world of Game of Thrones is chaotic; the durations of the seasons are essentially unpredictable (whatever the quack-scientists of King's Landing may try to tell you about predicting the onset of winter), and the seasons last several years. In this paper, inspired by the terrible weather on the way here to Oldtown, I attempt to understand and explain this fascinating and mysterious climate. I start by presenting observational evidence from various ancient manuscripts from the Citadel Library, and then, with the aid of a Climate Model, present a theory for the changing seasons based on variations in the orbit of the planet around the Sun. I then explore the implications of this theory for phenomena such as the likely attack plans of invading dragon hordes from Essos, the dominance of the seas by the Iron Fleet, the hibernation zones of White Walkers in summer, and the trading routes between Westeros and the Free cities across the Narrow Sea. Following this, I compare the climate of various regions in the world of Game of Thrones with those of the 'real' Earth, and show that the climate of The Wall in winter resembles very closely that of Lapland in Sweden/Finland, and Fairbanks, Alaska, whereas the climate of Casterly Rock, home of the scheming Lannisters, resembles that of Changsha in China, and Houston, Texas. Finally, I make a prediction of the ” Climate Sensitivity” of the world of Game of Thrones, the amount of global warming that would occur if concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were to be doubled (due to the recent increase in carbon dioxide and methane emissions from dragons, and the excessive use of wildfire). I show that this warming would likely be accompanied by sea level rise that could lead to the inundation of coastal cities, including the outskirts of King's Landing (which may be a good thing... unless you are unfortunate enough to live there).}, added-at = {2018-06-18T21:23:34.000+0200}, author = {Tarly, Samwell}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2daca2572a917dc60863d25eceff4f11e/pbett}, citeulike-article-id = {14508519}, citeulike-attachment-1 = {game_thrones_10-1.pdf; /pdf/user/pbett/article/14508519/1125653/game_thrones_10-1.pdf; e143da665b383f3f54d7dd1adb1da4c7d3e9ea15}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2017/december/climate-game-of-thrones-.html}, file = {game_thrones_10-1.pdf}, interhash = {4e15eacc10bf3712a170e683aec51124}, intrahash = {daca2572a917dc60863d25eceff4f11e}, journal = {Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of King's Landing}, keywords = {silly climate climatechange model popsci}, month = dec, number = 1, pages = {1--9}, posted-at = {2017-12-26 20:24:56}, priority = {2}, timestamp = {2018-06-22T18:38:30.000+0200}, title = {The Climate of the world of Game of Thrones}, url = {http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2017/december/climate-game-of-thrones-.html}, volume = 1, year = 2017 }