Expert: Tom Whiting - 11/23/2009

Question
what do you find interesting about the below paragraph?

The coordinates for Fussa Japan are:
35° 44′ 0″ N, 139° 20′ 0″ E

Fussa-shi, Tokyo lies in the humid subtropical climate zone. The isotherms in the northern hemisphere by Japan take the shape of the northern part of the pacific ring of fire. The south in comparison is very different since there is a lot more water. We experience a rather big difference in temperatures throughout the year. Our summers are pretty hot and humid. Some years are worse than others. Winter temps typically don’t go below freezing. We experience all four seasons. However, in the early summer months we have rain, rain, and more rain. Warm air from the south and cold Siberian air cause lots of moisture over Japan. 90 degrees east of Fussa is ocean, however, 90 degrees west puts me in northwestern Iran.

As one can already guess, this climate is very different. It is very dry and arid. Iran’s climate ranges from subtropical to subpolar. In winter a high-pressure belt, centered in Siberia, slashes west and south to the interior of the Iranian plateau, and low-pressure systems develop over the warm waters of the Caspian Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Mediterranean Sea. In summer one of the world’s lowest-pressure centers prevails in the south. Low-pressure systems in Pakistan generate two regular wind patterns: the shamal, which blows from February to October northwesterly through the Tigris-Euphrates valley, and the “120-day” summer wind, which can reach velocities of 70 miles (110 km) per hour in the Sistan region near Pakistan. Warm Arabian winds bring heavy moisture from the Persian Gulf. Different bodies of water and terrain greatly influence the climate of this area, much like Japan.

This information is valuable to me because I like to travel and i dont want to pack for warm weather if I am going to be in the mountains, even if the latitudes are the same.  

Answer
My opinion?  I agree with it...topography (mountains and valleys)  and bodies of water greatly influence local climate and weather. That and the global wind patterns and especially the
jet stream which drives the weather systems around the globe.

We've been very very fortunate the past 10,000 years to be living in a very stable climatic
system with little change. No megavolcanoes, no major asteroid impacts, no major ice age
incursions during the Holocene for the past 11,000 years, and a pretty stable solar output
except for the Maunder minimum (Europe's little iceage) from 1645 - 1715. Also no nuclear exchanges either....any one of which could throw us back into an Ice Age because we're only 5 or 6 degrees above ice-age temperatures. How much longer the inter-glacial warm period will last? History shows only 10,000 years separated by 80,000 to 100,000 years of glacers advancing. We're already on borrowed time for the Holocene period.  So burn more fuel...help it out, help give the Earth some increased temperature "insurance" from the next ice-age.
That's my opinion.
Clear Skies,
Tom