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Canadians don’t live as far north as you think

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Re: Canadians don’t live as far north as you think

#21

Post by brillenfux »

Ensorceled wrote: post #17

This is missing the point. People think of Canadians as tough hardy, northerners because it's -8C in Toronto and we've been having really nice February, last year it was like -20C all month. It's -12 in Montreal right now. It's still interesting to think about it but don't try to imply that it's not actually cold, bitter and rough sledding here because we're "south" of London. Because it's 8C in London right now.

That's continental vs maritime climate for you.

Rain or not, at least we don't freeze our asses (so bad) over here :D

Re: Canadians don’t live as far north as you think

#22

Post by kr7 »

parennoob wrote: post #11
Amir6 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we talking about north or weather being cold? I know for many regions one translates to another but assuming they are the same thing is what "doesn't make sense". In this post, the author is talking about NORTH.

In popular culture and public consciousness, the two are equated very often. See, for example, the latest hit show - Game of Thrones which shows a very cold, hardy North and a warm, indolent South. Now I know these specific books that the show is based on derive from the Wars of the Roses -- but have you ever a fantasy writer who put people on the Southern hemisphere of their planet and made the North warm?

> but have you ever a fantasy writer who put people on the Southern hemisphere of their planet and made the North warm?

The Dragon Age series of games (and books).

Re: Canadians don’t live as far north as you think

#23

Post by bryanlarsen »

noxToken wrote: post #19
ascorbic wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a little misleading, because climate zones are just based on minimum average temperatures. British winters are similar to Texan winters, but British summers are more like Alaskan summers.

> British winters are similar to Texan winters Hmm. That's not so bad. What does everyone complain about? > but British summers are more like Alaskan summers You poor, poor people. Though they probably say the same about our 100F (~38C) summers.

> What does everyone complain about?

British winters have a similar temperature as Texan winters, but they have a lot more rain and a lot less sunshine (because of the clouds, and because the day is shorter).

Re: Canadians don’t live as far north as you think

#24

Post by ascorbic »

noxToken wrote: post #19
ascorbic wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a little misleading, because climate zones are just based on minimum average temperatures. British winters are similar to Texan winters, but British summers are more like Alaskan summers.

> British winters are similar to Texan winters Hmm. That's not so bad. What does everyone complain about? > but British summers are more like Alaskan summers You poor, poor people. Though they probably say the same about our 100F (~38C) summers.

Anything over 25C is a scorcher. Though nobody has AC in their homes, so we're less able to cope.

Re: Canadians don’t live as far north as you think

#25

Post by musha68k »

Thanks for pointing to that, I'm always baffled at how few people fail to acknowledge the most "basic" complexities of meteorological reality.

I have the suspicion that our inherent bias for linear thinking is the culprit here.

Some things can't ever be grasped intuitively and as long as education doesn't at least catch up with our propensity towards boundless optimism our and many more species are essentially doomed.

That said, it needs both for our children to be able to survive - boundless optimism and objective thinking.

As much as I am a kid of the 80s I don't see capitalism - with all its super exciting promises - being much else than an ever accelerating system to even more short-term thinking and conscious/subconscious ignorance at this point.

Yes, it might be less comfortable but we need to change now - each one of us - to save what we have inherited.

Talk with people, teach them, be nice and understanding but tell them that it's all in their hands - even if that's a scary thought!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experim...

Re: Canadians don’t live as far north as you think

#26

Post by herge »

ane wrote: post #16
herge wrote: post #9

The northernmost french community (of appreciable size) in the world is the remote mining town of Fermont ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermont ), in Quebec near the border with Labrador. It has ~3000 inhabitants, and is based around a large bunker/building containing housing, shops, schools, etc, which let's people live their lives in the winter without having to go outside. The second northernmost French communit…

The actual northernmost French (the Republic) community is in Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, which is funnily enough just next to Quebec! it's an overseas territory and they use the Euro as their currency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Pierre_and_Miquelon

If you click on the wikipedia links, you can quickly see that Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon is ~5 degrees south of both Fermont and Dunkirk.

Even Paris is north of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon.

Re: Canadians don’t live as far north as you think

#27

Post by jp555 »

jsingleton wrote: post #20

Canada also isn't as big as you think, as hinted at in the article. It's still big though. Try asking people which they think is bigger, Greenland or Brazil. Brazil is of course much, much bigger but projections can be deceiving if you've only looked at flat maps.

South Africa is about the size of Alaska, but it doesn't look like that on most flat globe-projections.

Draw a shape around SA in Google's MyMaps, and then drag that shape up to Alaska. The shape grows about 3x bigger.

Re: Canadians don’t live as far north as you think

#28

Post by nommm-nommm »

sandworm101 wrote: post #18
nommm-nommm wrote: post #5

A "fact" that usually gets thrown around is that 3/4ths (or more) of the Canadian population live within 100 miles of the US border. It's probably pretty accurate. https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-Canadians-live-with...

And that a large percentage of the US population lives near the canadian boarder. The line was drawn through the great lakes. So everyone in New England, Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati etc can be said to be living near the canadian boarder. It's not that canadians need to be near the US, but near the water routes for trade with the rest of the world.

>everyone in New England

This is pretty silly. I just did some measurements in Google maps and not a single point in Massachusetts, Connecticut, or Rhode Island is even close to 100 miles from the Canadian border.

Re: Canadians don’t live as far north as you think

#29

Post by a_c_s »

baldfat wrote: post #15

Latitude doesn't equate to temperature. The poor pilgrims thought Massachusetts' winter would be warm or warmer then London's and not to far off of Virginia's. The temperature of the Gulf Stream and its effect on the UK and Western Europe means that while London is 1000k north London UK March Avg in C High 12 Low 5 in F High 53 Low 40 London, Ontario March Avg in C High 4 Low -5 in F High 40 Low 24 Edit copy and past…

I think your second group of numbers is off: -5C is 23F

Re: Canadians don’t live as far north as you think

#30

Post by adekok »

nommm-nommm wrote: post #5

A "fact" that usually gets thrown around is that 3/4ths (or more) of the Canadian population live within 100 miles of the US border. It's probably pretty accurate. https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-Canadians-live-with...

Because the rest is cold.

... says the guy who used to bicycle to university in -37C (-45 with wind chill!)

Fun fact: the plastic buckles on knapsacks will shatter like glass in -45 weather. Try biking to school while holding a knapsack in one hand. On snow and ice.

I'm smarter now.

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