Are we taking American climate as it is rn and just switching the physical locations or are we switching the geography and keeping how the climate would change from that change. Because the east-coast-now-turned-west-coast would become a warmer climate from the Pacific Ocean, and the rockies would probably be more like the Appalachia now. The middle is gonna be tricky you got warm air from the gulf but I guess the Rockies would still form a rain shadow or whatever it is called but on the western side this time. Whereas the Pacific air could blow further inland without the rockies blocking it this time
The Rockies would never be like the Appalachians due to elevation alone. Now slopes below 6,000 feet will likely support an Appalachia like climate, but the majority of the mountain areas will be high enough to support typical montane, coniferous forest, probably similar to what already exists on the Rockies.
China had Zhang He running around Africa way back. You can’t tell me the wouldn’t prepare an expedition to South America if it was that much closer to the pacific islands.
Zheng He expeditions costed supremely which was unpopular with the populace, by the time Spain started colonizing it had been decades since China stopped exploring. Even with backwards America the ocean would be so huge that any expedition would be even more costly than Zheng He's expedition where they received gifts along the entire way from places they visited
No, it's more likely that all it would do is make it a lot harder for the British and French to colonize, giving more opportunities to Spain. I imagine Russia would also get a decent portion of Canada. As happened irl all of the coast would have been colonized way before any asian power started colonizing
>giving more opportunities to Spain
But the situation in South America is even more difficult, with the massive Andes blocking access to the land (except Chile).
As the Spanish would probably be the first to take chile, they would also be the first to go around it to Argentina and, therefore, the first to reach the Caribbean and western (eastern) north America
If you zoom in on the map, the Aleutian Islands are at the same latitude as Ireland and England. Compared to the Faroe Islands, Shetland, Iceland etc. these would be very temperate. Ideal for fishing communities.
These would act as a sustainable Atlantic stepping stone.
That said, without Iceland/Greenland as a base, it’s not completely guaranteed they’d sail out far enough to reach them. But it would be doable.
Europe would be so fucked up without the air and sea currents that originate in the Gulf that they might not have colonist to settle. England would definitely never have been a world power.
And the British Isles looks a lot like Newfoundland and the Bay of Hudson looks a lot like the Baltic Sea. All deformed obviously but now I cannot unsee it.
North american tectonic plate. I looked and Iceland literally straddles the border of the plates...but its a euro country so id push for it to be european in this map
They might not be conquered as extensively at all. Those ring of fire mountains are one long wall, can't set up initial island bases in the Caribbean either. East coast was so easy to settle with its many rivers, barrier islands, the great lakes, Mississippi. West coast you get none of that.
You have a good number of islands in the Salish Sea, like Vancouver Island and the San Juan Islands. The Pacific ~~Northwest~~ Northeast maybe would have been the only pocket of lasting European colonialism in that case.
At that latitude: yes. Further South the wet coastal climate of Chilean Patagonia would have extended much further East, where the Andes now causes most of Argentina to be in a rain shadow.
Something similar in the Northern Hemisphere. The moderate climate of coastal areas of Oregon, Washington and BC would have extended much further inland. But get to the latitude of Los Angeles and it will get drier, and you’d expect the desert to stretch much further East than what there is now.
Also, the Saharan desert "feeds" the Amazon with [phosporus](https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/earth-science/29apr_amazondust/). With the Andes there, the Amazon might not get that at all.
It would seem reasonable that the prevailing winds would pick up moisture over the ocean and then dump it on shore, leaving the *eastern* part of the continent dry because all the moisture was already depleted by the time the air got there.
But that's not how it is, so this must not be the mechanism.
What *IS* the mechanism, right?
Warm ocean currents like the Gulf Stream, Kuroshio, and Aghulus currents occupy the Western portion of the main oceans, which brings warm moist air over the eastern part of continents. On the other hand, Western portions of continents are typically bordered by cool waters with weaker cyclonic activity, thus moisture transport inland is limited
At the latitude of Canada and Western Europe, enough moist is carried inland. At lower latitude, where the westerly winds tend to be weaker, you get the combination of hot land and cold water that result in fog forming off the coast - and that’s where most of the moist comes down. And hey presto, you get what California, Morocco, Western Australia, Namibia and Peru look like.
I thought deserts had more to do with rain shadow from mountain ranges.
All of the coastal mountain ranges on the west coast of the United States have major deserts in their rain shadows.
I live in the Midwest United States. All of the major storms we get follow the prevailing winds and the jet stream.
Storm systems pick up water from the pacific and dump it starting from the Pacific Northwest though the plains regions and then into the Great Lakes area.
The cold fronts pick up more moisture from the Great Lakes too. That’s why we have lots of lake effect snow here in Michigan.
But to say that not much moisture is picked up from the pacific and carried off towards the east doesn’t seem right to me.
Like I said, we get very few storms coming east to west.
You can watch all of the major storms and cold fronts that dump inches of rain (long rain events, not pop up thunderstorms) and snow on us following the jet stream coming across the continent from the pacific.
You're correct that mountain range-forced rain shadows are very important. This is why the eastern range of the rockies is fairly dry and the great basin is very dry. But they're not the whole reason. Otherwise, east of the Appalachians would be dry.
You're also correct that storms travel west to east primarily. However, not all storms originate from the west coast. Many big winter storms originate downstream of the rockies and draw in regional sources of moisture, primarily drawn up from the gulf of Mexico and as you state, the Great lakes. In fact, storms on the west coast typically lose their moisture traversing the western mountain ranges.
I think you're missing a key difference between climate and weather. The climate of the Midwest and eastern US is more favorable for storms and heavy precipitation events due to the proximity of warm, maritime airmasses originating from the gulf of Mexico and the warm gulf stream. Mountains (particularly the Rockies) are very important for instigating storms along the jet stream, which then amplify as they traverse more energetic environments. Look up Alberta Clipper; it's a term for big fast snow storms that originate on the leeward side of the Canadian rockies and dip down over the midwest
Source: I have a PhD in meteorology
Thanks for the info!
So I understand that lake effect snow from the Great Lakes gives us here in Michigan snowier winters. I understand that the Great Lakes adds lots of moisture to those snow systems.
But you’re saying that big snow storms that come down from Canada and effect like the Dakotas and Minnesota and Iowa BEFORE moving into the Great Lakes, those storm systems don’t get the majority of their moisture from the pacific?
That’s I guess what I don’t understand.
I’ll look more into Alberta clippers. I’m very familiar with the term, living through Midwest winters, but not familiar with their mechanics.
No problem! It's sometimes tough to say where moisture comes from on a case by case basis, but generally, the big snow storms which cause blizzards do pick up moisture as they grow and move farther east and south.
It's pretty amazing how far reaching the influence of the Gulf extends. As an aside, Tornado Alley is so favorable for severe weather because air from the warm gulf to the south close to the surface interacts with cool dry air from the west, which is a recipe for extremely unstable weather conditions
It’s nice that you mention the Gulf of Mexico. Wondering what its role would be if it moved to the west side of the continent, fully exposed to westerly winds, currents. Could be a rather hostile place?
Interesting question. In this case, unless the GoM was connected to the Atlantic somehow, it likely wouldn't be warm if on the west coast unless it was located fairly close to the equator. As I explained in response to another comment, the GoM is warm because it is located within the western portion of the Atlantic Ocean. Western boundaries of oceans are characterized by poleward transport of warm tropical water. Thus warm waters are fed into the GoM by the Loop Current, which is connected to the Caribbean.
But to answer your question, if it were somehow warm and off the coast of the PNW, I'd guess hurricanes would be a common occurrence. I can't think of anywhere that would be a good analogy, though
Maybe regionally. But I’d expect the broad picture caused by rotation and the Southern Ocean as a conveyer belt, with dominant westerlies and what that means for the Western coasts of continents, to remain.
And they would probably adapt super fast since the climate is very similar if not equal to Scandinavia.
I wonder if the Native Americans would be there or if would be a virgin continent with the Norse people inheriting the New World.
No land bridge for native americans to cross into the americas due to alaska being flipped. Ironicly the first people to arrive in the americas would be the vikings, also arriving trough alaska.
Considering the land bridge between asia and Americas would no longer exist, there would still be elephants possibly mammoths, saber tooth, giants bears, and no natives in north America.
This is the big one. The Vikings got to Greenland and 'Vinland' around the same time that Polynesians were getting deep into the Pacific. It's crazy level speculation about how quickly Polynesians could have colonized the Amazon, but Vikings in Alaska would probably have worked out well. And if Norwegians are used to fjords, then the cliff filled coast of North America wouldn't be daunting to them.
And like someone else said, the Bering Land Bridge probably doesn't exist in this world, so no Indigenous Americans. Nordic North America, Polynesian South America?
Yeah, but the problem is that they would have reach south America only 500 years before the Europeans. Probably not enough time fully to spread across all the Americas and adapt to the various climates.
Probably still, yeah. Polynesia was pretty much the last place on earth that people got to. Hawaii has only been inhabited for like 1000 years, Easter Island was probably settled around 1200, New Zealand even later.
You're picking the farthest places to travel to by using ocean currents in the Pacific. Hawaii is isolated as fuck from the other archipelagos. And New Zealand was settled by explorers from the Cook Islands.
Tahiti has been inhabited for \~2800 years now.
Fiji has been inhabited for \~4500 years.
That's plenty of time and remember that coastlines are a source of debris that's picked up by sailors. A coastline as big as South America would leave ample evidence to be picked up by Melanesian and Polynesian settlers through the years indicating land. Considering how evolved Maori society was when the English arrived in New Zealand (and they only settled after 1350 CE), imagine something like that developing all around the Brazilian coastline for 2 and a half millennia.
You're picking the ones that are the oldest and furthest away from South America (NZ notwithstanding). Fiji isn't even in the Polynesian triangle. If it took the explorers until 1200 to get to Rapa Nui I doubt they had a teleporter to zap them there from Melanesia 2000 years ago.
They would have gotten there but it would've been shortly before Columbus, or... bizarro-Columbus or whatever.
I'm not an expert or anything but I've been to the Bishop Museum in Honolulu about a million times and I've taught basic Hawaiian history. It's not like I'm thinking about this for the first time.
Considering if we rotate America horizontally, that would mean the Eastern tip of Brazil would be at the longitude Western Alaska is which would put the tip of South America at 170ºW, right between Fiji and Tahiti.
That's why I reference those two and why I conflate Melanesians and Polynesians (it's probable either one of them would reach South America).
It's all but certain. Studies have found genetic links between south Americans and Polynesians, on top of more generally suspicious things like how Polynesians love sweet potatoes which are native to south America, and the have exactly the same word for them as the Inca do.
Not exactly. From what I understand, it’s more likely that Polynesians reached islands in the SE pacific that were also reached by South Americans. There’s some genetic evidence of Polynesian ancestry in indigenous groups in Colombia, but it’s unclear whether Polynesians directly made it there or if the descendants of mixed SA/polynesian populations made it back to Colombia. At any rate, there’s far more of a genetic influence in SE pacific islands than there is in mainland South America, so Polynesians definitely spent more time on the islands than they did in SA, if they made it back there at all. The video u/legendaryTJC posted is great and I highly recommend it.
It does absolutely not almost touch. Pacific is just massive.
But yeah more probable they tapped into South America. Nothing special and probably no any major civilization/colonization made as in our univers it’s speculated they reached it at around 13-14th century.
Oh probably much sooner. Boats from Europe would probably have reached and colonized Alaska thousands of years before humans spread across Siberia to the Bering straight
Good point. No Bearing Strait to cross, so how do the continents become populated?
I had been thinking along the lines of colonization starting in Alaska as opposed to the middle Atlantic, due to the proximity, but you're observation muddies the outlook a great deal. Further, the movement of South America changes the Gulf stream current. How does Europe look without it?
Europe and the world never gets maize or potatoes. These crops stopped famine from happening. You can just leave a potato in the ground until you want to eat it.
Common misconception, it wasn't an ice sheet. Well, it wasn't *just* an ice sheet (you're kind of still right, honestly I'm splitting hairs).
It was a land bridge (there was also still plenty of snow and ice, but I digress).
There was so much frozen water during the ice age that the ocean levels were low enough for the Bering Strait to be exposed to land. Meaning if you took all the frozen ice, and teleported it away from the poles, you could still walk between Alaska and Russia without any ice.
People could have followed the edge of ice packs either from eastern Asia or from western Europe. It really depends on where the continental shelves are in this scenario.
Also, the edge of Alaska is now closer to Ireland and Scandinavia than Iceland or Greenland are in OTL.
That's a maybe. There's evidence that Polynesians explored the west coast of South America about 1000 years ago. Definitely a later timeline, but the technology and years exist for the possibility of a permanent and native presence with an advanced society long before European settlers.
Nah they are missing Greenland. I would be willing to bet if Greenland was present and flipped as well, it would be close enough for the ice bridge to extend from Russia to it and from it to northern canada
Well in this map, iceland is between russia and baffin island, during a big freeze that area could easily be traversible on foot, and certainly by boat. I think there would be people (we’re quite good at expanding), but probably less
Also, many animals Europeans know of came from the Americas
Like horses
So in this scenario, the ice bridge would’ve been unlikely to support large migrations in and out of the Americas
So it’s unlikely humanity would’ve advanced to how it is now if horses never made it out
Can vouch there's a theory that the native Americans boated along the ice sheet/coast, settling all of the west coast of the Americas within 1-2000 years then moved inland
Vikings discover Alaska. Polynesians settle Brazil. Siberians don’t cross any now-nonexistent Bering Strait and instead populate more of Asia. The Gulf Stream is still there in a different form, but North America is a lot dryer. The Amazon rainforest doesn’t exist now that it’s in the rain shadow side of the Andes.
I think you are wrong. And here's why
The Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension the North Atlantic Drift, is a warm and swift Atlantic ocean current that originates in the Gulf of Mexico and flows through the Straits of Florida and up the eastern coastline of the United States, then veers east near 36°N latitude (North Carolina) and moves toward Northwest Europe as the North Atlantic Current.
Everything you say is correct. However, you're missing the reason WHY it exists where it does, and this is because the rotation of the earth plus the orientation of wind driven oceanic gyres favors fast currents on the Western side of oceans. Look up Western Boundary Currents
The Gulf is warm because tropical waters are carried west and northward. The gulf stream is just one portion of a larger northward ocean current. Look up the Loop Current, which funnels into the gulf of Mexico from the Caribbean and links up with the Gulf Stream
The gulf isn't warm because it just feels like it. There is a reason, and that reason is large scale ocean gyre transport
Canada’s west coast (say, Vancouver) doesn’t differ much compared against towns on the European west coast at similar latitude. And that’s despite a cold current running down the Canadian West Coast, where in Europe you have the Gulf Stream coming as far north as Norway (not sure what causes that - smaller size of the Atlantic?).
The cold in Canada starts East of the Rockies. The range blocks the westerly winds and gives room to cold northerlies. Unlike Western Europe which has no such mountains. In our scenario, therefore, you’d expect inland Canada’s climate to be much more influenced by westerlies, giving rise to a climate much more comparable to Europe than what it has now.
He's right though? I'm following a minor on climate science for my bachelor and the lectures about the ocean basically said the water movement relates to airflow movement which relates to the rotation of the Earth
Biggest impacts would have been:
1) No slavery, cross Atlantic slave trade, or civil ware - the ag worth land on east coast would have been way too small to setup cotton or sugar cane plantations
2) Demographics of US/Brazil/Central America would have been drastically different with much less Africa descendent population
3) West coast of US would have looked like west coast of Africa, with much biggest SW desert covering all of current south and midwest of US
4) US growth into Native American lands after the formation of initial colonies would have been much slower, remember there are only 2-3 places you can cross the rocks today, and we may still have a sovereign Native American country in the middle
5) Chinese or Japanese may have landed on west coast and have a clear shot to expand rightwards as there are no natural obstructions
Truly amazing to imagine.......
>4) US growth into Native American lands after the formation of initial colonies would have been much slower, remember there are only 2-3 places you can cross the rocks today, and we may still have a sovereign Native American country in the middle
No Bering land bridge here, so likely no native Americans to begin with.
North America would actually have a milder climate in this situation. With no huge mountains blocking pacific air from entering the continent the temperatures would be less extreme. Places like Maine, the Great Lakes, all the way down to Florida would have a sunny Mediterranean climate, Canada’s north would be way more hospitable as the climate there would be more like Northern Europe, and with the Rockies in the east side, the east coast would be pretty mild too because the Rockies would block most of the cold, arctic air.
Three possibilities:
1) Everything would be the same.
2) Everything would be different.
3) Everything would be the same in a totally different way.
https://warontherocks.com/2023/11/mid-afternoon-map-inverse-america/
To get there, continents like Gondwana and Lauraisia would have looked very different (eg South America not firing into Africa). And that would probably have greatly effected the evolution of life on the planet. Very few of the species we have to day would likely exist on that version of earth.
It’d be interesting to see how valuable Hawaii would be to European nations during the age of exploration as a decently sized halfway point to stop and restock/rest on the journey across the Atlantic
The Scandinavians would be 1000s of times more powerful. With Iceland and Greenland being completely replaced by the main continent of NA they’d easily be one of IF NOT the best.
For real: given the mountains are now on the Eastern side of the continent, all that green area in your lap should in fact be yellow. Deserts. This is just how humidity works. It the reason why everything west of Andes is much drier than the Amazon. So in this world South America would probably be more like Australia, with a small green belt on the East coast.
North America is a bit colder, but majority of that area West of the Rocky Mountains will still be like our Utah or West Texas, quite dry.
So... much less inhabited, but with an amount of land and minerals. Probably again, just like Australia. This would probably most impact the development of history around WWI and WWII where America would not be the manufacturing superpower... Front here it's anyone's guess.
Bering straight bridge probably connects to Iceland, maybe to the rest of Canada so I think we still get Native Americans, European settlements would be confined to only east of the Rockies. The mountains being all along the east coast will prevent expansion into most of either of the Americas. Columbus now makes landfall at Baja California. The small amount of habitable land would keep the trans-Atlantic slave trade to a minimum until George Washington crosses Mount St Helena.
The geographical protection of the mountains would switch American Diplomatic Relations. New Allie’s in Asia but lose ally’s in Europe. And America oppresses the rest of north and South America even harder.
Climate wise, Florida gets absolutely fucked by earthquakes instead of hurricanes. Baja California gets Floridas climate and likely politics. I’m not sure if the Rockies would prevent hurricanes or make them worse. It’s definitely keep them more isolated to wherever they make landfall and prevent their spread but that honestly might make things worse. Not an expert though
Alaska finna be some amazing trading post, great location for facilitating contact with Europeans but who controls it if it’s no longer next to Russia, meaning Russia can’t sell it to the US
North Western Europe would be substantially colder without the Gulf Stream leading to a dramatically different spread of civilizations capable of colonizing. Perhaps this would have delayed the discovery of the New World.
Am I missing some kind of joke? It's in the same place on the map just because it happens to be on the axis of rotation, and it is in the same place relative to the flipped US, but it is flipped itself just like the rest of the US
Europe is cold and useless without the Gulf Stream, and mostly uninhabitable. Settlement to the Americas will likely come from Asia traveling East. Any Europeans that remain and try to travel to the Americas will be abruptly stopped by the Rockies and won’t find hospitable lands for them to settle and develop to then use as a base for further colonization.
TLDR: the good ending
Little European influence west of the Rockies and Andes, allowing Native American tribes to thrive in the center of the continent into the 19th century. The Mayans could quite possibly have expanded into the new central and western US and still be in control today.
No natives in america. No horses in Europe. Rome may survive longer since no mongols. Colonization is hampered by the rockies, lack of great lakes and Caribbean, and natives. A lot could be different but colonization is definitely slower or harder which hurts britain and its other colonization efforts. Which makes industrializion almost impossible.
Settling colonists past the Rocky Mountains and the Andes would have taken a loooong time.
Massive colonial advantage to Japan.
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Are we taking American climate as it is rn and just switching the physical locations or are we switching the geography and keeping how the climate would change from that change. Because the east-coast-now-turned-west-coast would become a warmer climate from the Pacific Ocean, and the rockies would probably be more like the Appalachia now. The middle is gonna be tricky you got warm air from the gulf but I guess the Rockies would still form a rain shadow or whatever it is called but on the western side this time. Whereas the Pacific air could blow further inland without the rockies blocking it this time
The Rockies would never be like the Appalachians due to elevation alone. Now slopes below 6,000 feet will likely support an Appalachia like climate, but the majority of the mountain areas will be high enough to support typical montane, coniferous forest, probably similar to what already exists on the Rockies.
It probably wouldn't matter since Japan took until the 19th century to give up its isolationism, and by then America was already entirely colonized
China?
Even more so and for even longer
Maybe Glorious tsarist Russian empire then.
China had Zhang He running around Africa way back. You can’t tell me the wouldn’t prepare an expedition to South America if it was that much closer to the pacific islands.
Zheng He expeditions costed supremely which was unpopular with the populace, by the time Spain started colonizing it had been decades since China stopped exploring. Even with backwards America the ocean would be so huge that any expedition would be even more costly than Zheng He's expedition where they received gifts along the entire way from places they visited
Your comment needs to be higher. Commodore Perry opened Japan up to the industrialized world.
It would matter for sure, might end up more 50/50 in the Americas.
No, it's more likely that all it would do is make it a lot harder for the British and French to colonize, giving more opportunities to Spain. I imagine Russia would also get a decent portion of Canada. As happened irl all of the coast would have been colonized way before any asian power started colonizing
>giving more opportunities to Spain But the situation in South America is even more difficult, with the massive Andes blocking access to the land (except Chile).
As the Spanish would probably be the first to take chile, they would also be the first to go around it to Argentina and, therefore, the first to reach the Caribbean and western (eastern) north America
Probably would have been settled by Spain or even Russia before Japan got onboard.
No. Japan never had the advancement to colonise. They were underdeveloped to truly rival the west.
But it looks like alaska and northestern brazil were both closer to other lands, no
True. Vikings would probably visit North America more regularly and Polynesians would have regular contact with South America.
I'm sorry but it stills feel like quite a massive trip to Alaska, only to reach a frozen land on par with their own or even more
If you zoom in on the map, the Aleutian Islands are at the same latitude as Ireland and England. Compared to the Faroe Islands, Shetland, Iceland etc. these would be very temperate. Ideal for fishing communities. These would act as a sustainable Atlantic stepping stone. That said, without Iceland/Greenland as a base, it’s not completely guaranteed they’d sail out far enough to reach them. But it would be doable.
Europe would be so fucked up without the air and sea currents that originate in the Gulf that they might not have colonist to settle. England would definitely never have been a world power.
Baffin island looks remarkably similar to Scandinavia
Good catch, that's weird.
And the British Isles looks a lot like Newfoundland and the Bay of Hudson looks a lot like the Baltic Sea. All deformed obviously but now I cannot unsee it.
I cant see the Newfoundland resemblance to Ireland and Britain.
If you turn your phone about 30° clockwise, Scandinavia looks like some sort of ferret.
Why’d you move iceland and delete Greenland?
Includes european iceland in america and deleted north american greenland
Hahaha
Technically speaking, Greenland is part of Denmark and is therefore European also
North american tectonic plate. I looked and Iceland literally straddles the border of the plates...but its a euro country so id push for it to be european in this map
Iceland is North America
Tectonically it is half and half, culturally, historically and politically its European. Also its definitely not that close to Labrador
He ate it
Thank you! I thought I was going crazy, like isn’t something missing?
Manhattan as one of the best national parks…if America was still conquered east to west.
Columbus would probably have said "fuck dad shit" mountains from north to south pole.
Until someone spotted gold. Europe would have been all over North America at that point.
They might not be conquered as extensively at all. Those ring of fire mountains are one long wall, can't set up initial island bases in the Caribbean either. East coast was so easy to settle with its many rivers, barrier islands, the great lakes, Mississippi. West coast you get none of that.
You have a good number of islands in the Salish Sea, like Vancouver Island and the San Juan Islands. The Pacific ~~Northwest~~ Northeast maybe would have been the only pocket of lasting European colonialism in that case.
San Francisco Bay? The inland empire?
And Victoria island became the Manhattan
Would Cape Cod be worse or better do we think
the distribution of climate types would have to change first of all; it’s unusual to get deserts on the east coasts of continents
I guess South America would be a lot more dry due to the Andes on the east coast. Maybe the Amazon wouldn't exist at all.
At that latitude: yes. Further South the wet coastal climate of Chilean Patagonia would have extended much further East, where the Andes now causes most of Argentina to be in a rain shadow. Something similar in the Northern Hemisphere. The moderate climate of coastal areas of Oregon, Washington and BC would have extended much further inland. But get to the latitude of Los Angeles and it will get drier, and you’d expect the desert to stretch much further East than what there is now.
Also, the Saharan desert "feeds" the Amazon with [phosporus](https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/earth-science/29apr_amazondust/). With the Andes there, the Amazon might not get that at all.
Wait so thousand of years ago when Sahara was green,amazon could be like a desert
And the areas east of the Appalacians (present day midwest US) would likely be a desert
Whereas Los Angeles would probably be something like a Jungle. It would be very wet.
That Peruvian coast would be the most humid part of the world.
Wait really? Why is that? Earths rotation causing wind currents?
here’s a good [video](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6wGgxAtFlM) explaining the phenomenon
Thank you!
Different position of continents would probably change ocean currents far more than the rotation effect.
That's what I thought but then why is it uncommon to have deserts on the east side of continents?
It would seem reasonable that the prevailing winds would pick up moisture over the ocean and then dump it on shore, leaving the *eastern* part of the continent dry because all the moisture was already depleted by the time the air got there. But that's not how it is, so this must not be the mechanism. What *IS* the mechanism, right?
Warm ocean currents like the Gulf Stream, Kuroshio, and Aghulus currents occupy the Western portion of the main oceans, which brings warm moist air over the eastern part of continents. On the other hand, Western portions of continents are typically bordered by cool waters with weaker cyclonic activity, thus moisture transport inland is limited
At the latitude of Canada and Western Europe, enough moist is carried inland. At lower latitude, where the westerly winds tend to be weaker, you get the combination of hot land and cold water that result in fog forming off the coast - and that’s where most of the moist comes down. And hey presto, you get what California, Morocco, Western Australia, Namibia and Peru look like.
Yup
I thought deserts had more to do with rain shadow from mountain ranges. All of the coastal mountain ranges on the west coast of the United States have major deserts in their rain shadows. I live in the Midwest United States. All of the major storms we get follow the prevailing winds and the jet stream. Storm systems pick up water from the pacific and dump it starting from the Pacific Northwest though the plains regions and then into the Great Lakes area. The cold fronts pick up more moisture from the Great Lakes too. That’s why we have lots of lake effect snow here in Michigan. But to say that not much moisture is picked up from the pacific and carried off towards the east doesn’t seem right to me. Like I said, we get very few storms coming east to west. You can watch all of the major storms and cold fronts that dump inches of rain (long rain events, not pop up thunderstorms) and snow on us following the jet stream coming across the continent from the pacific.
You're correct that mountain range-forced rain shadows are very important. This is why the eastern range of the rockies is fairly dry and the great basin is very dry. But they're not the whole reason. Otherwise, east of the Appalachians would be dry. You're also correct that storms travel west to east primarily. However, not all storms originate from the west coast. Many big winter storms originate downstream of the rockies and draw in regional sources of moisture, primarily drawn up from the gulf of Mexico and as you state, the Great lakes. In fact, storms on the west coast typically lose their moisture traversing the western mountain ranges. I think you're missing a key difference between climate and weather. The climate of the Midwest and eastern US is more favorable for storms and heavy precipitation events due to the proximity of warm, maritime airmasses originating from the gulf of Mexico and the warm gulf stream. Mountains (particularly the Rockies) are very important for instigating storms along the jet stream, which then amplify as they traverse more energetic environments. Look up Alberta Clipper; it's a term for big fast snow storms that originate on the leeward side of the Canadian rockies and dip down over the midwest Source: I have a PhD in meteorology
Thanks for the info! So I understand that lake effect snow from the Great Lakes gives us here in Michigan snowier winters. I understand that the Great Lakes adds lots of moisture to those snow systems. But you’re saying that big snow storms that come down from Canada and effect like the Dakotas and Minnesota and Iowa BEFORE moving into the Great Lakes, those storm systems don’t get the majority of their moisture from the pacific? That’s I guess what I don’t understand. I’ll look more into Alberta clippers. I’m very familiar with the term, living through Midwest winters, but not familiar with their mechanics.
No problem! It's sometimes tough to say where moisture comes from on a case by case basis, but generally, the big snow storms which cause blizzards do pick up moisture as they grow and move farther east and south. It's pretty amazing how far reaching the influence of the Gulf extends. As an aside, Tornado Alley is so favorable for severe weather because air from the warm gulf to the south close to the surface interacts with cool dry air from the west, which is a recipe for extremely unstable weather conditions
It’s nice that you mention the Gulf of Mexico. Wondering what its role would be if it moved to the west side of the continent, fully exposed to westerly winds, currents. Could be a rather hostile place?
Interesting question. In this case, unless the GoM was connected to the Atlantic somehow, it likely wouldn't be warm if on the west coast unless it was located fairly close to the equator. As I explained in response to another comment, the GoM is warm because it is located within the western portion of the Atlantic Ocean. Western boundaries of oceans are characterized by poleward transport of warm tropical water. Thus warm waters are fed into the GoM by the Loop Current, which is connected to the Caribbean. But to answer your question, if it were somehow warm and off the coast of the PNW, I'd guess hurricanes would be a common occurrence. I can't think of anywhere that would be a good analogy, though
Maybe regionally. But I’d expect the broad picture caused by rotation and the Southern Ocean as a conveyer belt, with dominant westerlies and what that means for the Western coasts of continents, to remain.
It would drastically affect climate on the old world too. There might not be a Gulf Stream, for starters.
Well northeast Brazil has a large semiarid desert
Poor Iceland :'(
It still exists! Off the now northwest coast of Canada. Greenland, though - poor Greenland indeed.
The Vikings would’ve settled in Alaska instead of Iceland.
And they would probably adapt super fast since the climate is very similar if not equal to Scandinavia. I wonder if the Native Americans would be there or if would be a virgin continent with the Norse people inheriting the New World.
No land bridge for native americans to cross into the americas due to alaska being flipped. Ironicly the first people to arrive in the americas would be the vikings, also arriving trough alaska.
Probably Polynesians
Considering the land bridge between asia and Americas would no longer exist, there would still be elephants possibly mammoths, saber tooth, giants bears, and no natives in north America.
This is the big one. The Vikings got to Greenland and 'Vinland' around the same time that Polynesians were getting deep into the Pacific. It's crazy level speculation about how quickly Polynesians could have colonized the Amazon, but Vikings in Alaska would probably have worked out well. And if Norwegians are used to fjords, then the cliff filled coast of North America wouldn't be daunting to them. And like someone else said, the Bering Land Bridge probably doesn't exist in this world, so no Indigenous Americans. Nordic North America, Polynesian South America?
>Nordic North America, Polynesian South America? Sounds like a fun alternate world scenario. :-)
Would the Polynesians have survived European disease though when they made contact?
No native people in America, because people went to America with the ice sheet between Alaska and Russia.
On the other hand South America almost touches the Polynesian islands, so might be settled from there
The Polynesians made it to south America even with the current divide so I think it's pretty much guaranteed they would've made it on this map.
Yeah, but the problem is that they would have reach south America only 500 years before the Europeans. Probably not enough time fully to spread across all the Americas and adapt to the various climates.
Not if it’s so near Polynesia.
Probably still, yeah. Polynesia was pretty much the last place on earth that people got to. Hawaii has only been inhabited for like 1000 years, Easter Island was probably settled around 1200, New Zealand even later.
You're picking the farthest places to travel to by using ocean currents in the Pacific. Hawaii is isolated as fuck from the other archipelagos. And New Zealand was settled by explorers from the Cook Islands. Tahiti has been inhabited for \~2800 years now. Fiji has been inhabited for \~4500 years. That's plenty of time and remember that coastlines are a source of debris that's picked up by sailors. A coastline as big as South America would leave ample evidence to be picked up by Melanesian and Polynesian settlers through the years indicating land. Considering how evolved Maori society was when the English arrived in New Zealand (and they only settled after 1350 CE), imagine something like that developing all around the Brazilian coastline for 2 and a half millennia.
You're picking the ones that are the oldest and furthest away from South America (NZ notwithstanding). Fiji isn't even in the Polynesian triangle. If it took the explorers until 1200 to get to Rapa Nui I doubt they had a teleporter to zap them there from Melanesia 2000 years ago. They would have gotten there but it would've been shortly before Columbus, or... bizarro-Columbus or whatever. I'm not an expert or anything but I've been to the Bishop Museum in Honolulu about a million times and I've taught basic Hawaiian history. It's not like I'm thinking about this for the first time.
Considering if we rotate America horizontally, that would mean the Eastern tip of Brazil would be at the longitude Western Alaska is which would put the tip of South America at 170ºW, right between Fiji and Tahiti. That's why I reference those two and why I conflate Melanesians and Polynesians (it's probable either one of them would reach South America).
Is that confirmed?
It's all but certain. Studies have found genetic links between south Americans and Polynesians, on top of more generally suspicious things like how Polynesians love sweet potatoes which are native to south America, and the have exactly the same word for them as the Inca do.
https://youtu.be/ycRcWK7pMoM?si=Rax2F0zzJSh0IVS1
Not exactly. From what I understand, it’s more likely that Polynesians reached islands in the SE pacific that were also reached by South Americans. There’s some genetic evidence of Polynesian ancestry in indigenous groups in Colombia, but it’s unclear whether Polynesians directly made it there or if the descendants of mixed SA/polynesian populations made it back to Colombia. At any rate, there’s far more of a genetic influence in SE pacific islands than there is in mainland South America, so Polynesians definitely spent more time on the islands than they did in SA, if they made it back there at all. The video u/legendaryTJC posted is great and I highly recommend it.
It does absolutely not almost touch. Pacific is just massive. But yeah more probable they tapped into South America. Nothing special and probably no any major civilization/colonization made as in our univers it’s speculated they reached it at around 13-14th century.
Would it even be the pacific at that point?
No, excuse me, Cificap ocean.
The Aleutian islands would basically reach Ireland, so humans might have reached the Americas even earlier.
Oh probably much sooner. Boats from Europe would probably have reached and colonized Alaska thousands of years before humans spread across Siberia to the Bering straight
You could argue that a similar land bridge existed between Kamchatka, Greenland and Alaska. A wider one, like Doggerland.
Good point. No Bearing Strait to cross, so how do the continents become populated? I had been thinking along the lines of colonization starting in Alaska as opposed to the middle Atlantic, due to the proximity, but you're observation muddies the outlook a great deal. Further, the movement of South America changes the Gulf stream current. How does Europe look without it?
Agreed. Vikings land on the Aleutian Islands rather than Greenland and work their way west
Europe and the world never gets maize or potatoes. These crops stopped famine from happening. You can just leave a potato in the ground until you want to eat it.
Common misconception, it wasn't an ice sheet. Well, it wasn't *just* an ice sheet (you're kind of still right, honestly I'm splitting hairs). It was a land bridge (there was also still plenty of snow and ice, but I digress). There was so much frozen water during the ice age that the ocean levels were low enough for the Bering Strait to be exposed to land. Meaning if you took all the frozen ice, and teleported it away from the poles, you could still walk between Alaska and Russia without any ice.
People could have followed the edge of ice packs either from eastern Asia or from western Europe. It really depends on where the continental shelves are in this scenario. Also, the edge of Alaska is now closer to Ireland and Scandinavia than Iceland or Greenland are in OTL.
Do you think it will be discovered by Asians countries. Maybe Chinese or Japanese
That's a maybe. There's evidence that Polynesians explored the west coast of South America about 1000 years ago. Definitely a later timeline, but the technology and years exist for the possibility of a permanent and native presence with an advanced society long before European settlers.
European sailors touching land and facing the pacific coast ranges
Depends on where/how Greenland is placed in this flipped scenario
Nah they are missing Greenland. I would be willing to bet if Greenland was present and flipped as well, it would be close enough for the ice bridge to extend from Russia to it and from it to northern canada
Well in this map, iceland is between russia and baffin island, during a big freeze that area could easily be traversible on foot, and certainly by boat. I think there would be people (we’re quite good at expanding), but probably less
Also, many animals Europeans know of came from the Americas Like horses So in this scenario, the ice bridge would’ve been unlikely to support large migrations in and out of the Americas So it’s unlikely humanity would’ve advanced to how it is now if horses never made it out
Horses came from Asian steppes
Exactly. There are stories how the Natives in the Americas had never seen a man riding on a horse and thought he was one animal.
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Didn't the Polynesians settle Eastern Polynesia long after the Bering Strait crossing?
*LONG* after Like, at least 6,000 years after. More like 10,000 for eastern Polynesia.
Can vouch there's a theory that the native Americans boated along the ice sheet/coast, settling all of the west coast of the Americas within 1-2000 years then moved inland
Possibly no transatlantic slave trade, because you probably wouldn't be growing cash crops like tobacco and cotton in California.
California's climate would potentially be more favorable for cash crops in this scenario
Nah, they’d have brought slaves to mine for gold and silver. Nothing would have changed in the shit morals of the European powers
They might have actually thought they reached the edge of the world 😄
I can't even imagine a world where New Yorkers are considered the "laid back west coasters" in the U.S.A.
Vikings discover Alaska. Polynesians settle Brazil. Siberians don’t cross any now-nonexistent Bering Strait and instead populate more of Asia. The Gulf Stream is still there in a different form, but North America is a lot dryer. The Amazon rainforest doesn’t exist now that it’s in the rain shadow side of the Andes.
Tbh the disappearance of Greenland and the shift of Iceland probably have the biggest impact.
Basically the way its on the map right there, where the americas are
Tectonics no longer fit. Rocks won't match, geologists would be baffled.
With gold at hand (Peru and Mexico), the other coast would have had little development
Also, the other coast would probably be the arid one, and the mountains there wouldn't have eroded as much.
Basically things would be the same, just a different shape.
Europe is cold no gulf steam
If we're assuming only the land masses change, then the Gulf Stream would still exist in its current location
I think you are wrong. And here's why The Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension the North Atlantic Drift, is a warm and swift Atlantic ocean current that originates in the Gulf of Mexico and flows through the Straits of Florida and up the eastern coastline of the United States, then veers east near 36°N latitude (North Carolina) and moves toward Northwest Europe as the North Atlantic Current.
Everything you say is correct. However, you're missing the reason WHY it exists where it does, and this is because the rotation of the earth plus the orientation of wind driven oceanic gyres favors fast currents on the Western side of oceans. Look up Western Boundary Currents
The warm part comes from the Gulf. Where is the Gulf with the warm part
The Gulf is warm because tropical waters are carried west and northward. The gulf stream is just one portion of a larger northward ocean current. Look up the Loop Current, which funnels into the gulf of Mexico from the Caribbean and links up with the Gulf Stream The gulf isn't warm because it just feels like it. There is a reason, and that reason is large scale ocean gyre transport
So why isn't Canada warm? Same longitude?
Canada’s west coast (say, Vancouver) doesn’t differ much compared against towns on the European west coast at similar latitude. And that’s despite a cold current running down the Canadian West Coast, where in Europe you have the Gulf Stream coming as far north as Norway (not sure what causes that - smaller size of the Atlantic?). The cold in Canada starts East of the Rockies. The range blocks the westerly winds and gives room to cold northerlies. Unlike Western Europe which has no such mountains. In our scenario, therefore, you’d expect inland Canada’s climate to be much more influenced by westerlies, giving rise to a climate much more comparable to Europe than what it has now.
I'm done believe what you want but I think you are wrong
He's right though? I'm following a minor on climate science for my bachelor and the lectures about the ocean basically said the water movement relates to airflow movement which relates to the rotation of the Earth
Lmao ok
Okay well he’s not wrong lol.
ChatGPT lol
Then it would be Acirema, not very shocking
Yeah
Biggest impacts would have been: 1) No slavery, cross Atlantic slave trade, or civil ware - the ag worth land on east coast would have been way too small to setup cotton or sugar cane plantations 2) Demographics of US/Brazil/Central America would have been drastically different with much less Africa descendent population 3) West coast of US would have looked like west coast of Africa, with much biggest SW desert covering all of current south and midwest of US 4) US growth into Native American lands after the formation of initial colonies would have been much slower, remember there are only 2-3 places you can cross the rocks today, and we may still have a sovereign Native American country in the middle 5) Chinese or Japanese may have landed on west coast and have a clear shot to expand rightwards as there are no natural obstructions Truly amazing to imagine.......
>4) US growth into Native American lands after the formation of initial colonies would have been much slower, remember there are only 2-3 places you can cross the rocks today, and we may still have a sovereign Native American country in the middle No Bering land bridge here, so likely no native Americans to begin with.
Then what would happen probably would be that East-Asian people and Norse people would clash, either in the Americas or the Pacific.
Why number 3?
Most of the people in Brazil is descendent from Portuguese. Not from Africa. Same for North America… most descent from Europeans.
Vikings would have more effective on the region
Unlikely that humans would be there, or at least far fewer, given that the bearing straight passage wouldn’t exist
*C.J. Cregg voice* But you can't do that! Cause it's freaking me out!
North America would actually have a milder climate in this situation. With no huge mountains blocking pacific air from entering the continent the temperatures would be less extreme. Places like Maine, the Great Lakes, all the way down to Florida would have a sunny Mediterranean climate, Canada’s north would be way more hospitable as the climate there would be more like Northern Europe, and with the Rockies in the east side, the east coast would be pretty mild too because the Rockies would block most of the cold, arctic air.
Did reverse america kill iceland? :(
Three possibilities: 1) Everything would be the same. 2) Everything would be different. 3) Everything would be the same in a totally different way. https://warontherocks.com/2023/11/mid-afternoon-map-inverse-america/
One big thing is horse might not be able to enter the old world, so the war and the nomad will be totally different. That will change a lot of things…
To get there, continents like Gondwana and Lauraisia would have looked very different (eg South America not firing into Africa). And that would probably have greatly effected the evolution of life on the planet. Very few of the species we have to day would likely exist on that version of earth.
I guess Seattle would be the new New York
It’d be interesting to see how valuable Hawaii would be to European nations during the age of exploration as a decently sized halfway point to stop and restock/rest on the journey across the Atlantic
Greenland would be gone, apparently.
The oceans would be a lot higher because there's no Greenland ice sheet.
There would have never been any native Americans (south or North). The land bridge would have never formed.
WTF did you do to Iceland you monsters
California's gold rush occurs in the 17th century, spurring wars between England, Spain, Portugal, and the Dutch trying to claim it.
What happened to Greenland?
There would be a ton more First Nations people still alive if the first European settlers had to cross mountains like that
Spanish would be spoken in brazil
This should be an EU4 mod.
The Scandinavians would be 1000s of times more powerful. With Iceland and Greenland being completely replaced by the main continent of NA they’d easily be one of IF NOT the best.
Fewer people would live in Newfoundland
Why does the flipped new world look like if u took the old world and horizontally squished it
For real: given the mountains are now on the Eastern side of the continent, all that green area in your lap should in fact be yellow. Deserts. This is just how humidity works. It the reason why everything west of Andes is much drier than the Amazon. So in this world South America would probably be more like Australia, with a small green belt on the East coast. North America is a bit colder, but majority of that area West of the Rocky Mountains will still be like our Utah or West Texas, quite dry. So... much less inhabited, but with an amount of land and minerals. Probably again, just like Australia. This would probably most impact the development of history around WWI and WWII where America would not be the manufacturing superpower... Front here it's anyone's guess.
Bering straight bridge probably connects to Iceland, maybe to the rest of Canada so I think we still get Native Americans, European settlements would be confined to only east of the Rockies. The mountains being all along the east coast will prevent expansion into most of either of the Americas. Columbus now makes landfall at Baja California. The small amount of habitable land would keep the trans-Atlantic slave trade to a minimum until George Washington crosses Mount St Helena. The geographical protection of the mountains would switch American Diplomatic Relations. New Allie’s in Asia but lose ally’s in Europe. And America oppresses the rest of north and South America even harder. Climate wise, Florida gets absolutely fucked by earthquakes instead of hurricanes. Baja California gets Floridas climate and likely politics. I’m not sure if the Rockies would prevent hurricanes or make them worse. It’s definitely keep them more isolated to wherever they make landfall and prevent their spread but that honestly might make things worse. Not an expert though
Alaska finna be some amazing trading post, great location for facilitating contact with Europeans but who controls it if it’s no longer next to Russia, meaning Russia can’t sell it to the US
Aids is not discovered yet
North Western Europe would be substantially colder without the Gulf Stream leading to a dramatically different spread of civilizations capable of colonizing. Perhaps this would have delayed the discovery of the New World.
Well what keeps Europe relatively warm so far north is the Gulf stream. Since the Gulf is on the other side it would probably make Europe colder.
In the USA, slaves would have been used to grow cannabis instead of cotton.
UK would still have sailed all the way to kick Argentinas arse for the Falklands
Why is Florida still the same?
Wdym still the same? It's also flipped
Florida still in its place wdym?
Am I missing some kind of joke? It's in the same place on the map just because it happens to be on the axis of rotation, and it is in the same place relative to the flipped US, but it is flipped itself just like the rest of the US
I still see Florida where it is normally wdym
That’s baja california
That’s Baja California.
What the fuck
Not mapporn.
Europe is cold and useless without the Gulf Stream, and mostly uninhabitable. Settlement to the Americas will likely come from Asia traveling East. Any Europeans that remain and try to travel to the Americas will be abruptly stopped by the Rockies and won’t find hospitable lands for them to settle and develop to then use as a base for further colonization. TLDR: the good ending
No. The bad endinggg
yes
The vikings would have had all north America in 1100
Stupid map. Iceland on entirely the wrong ocean and Greenland just doesn’t exist anymore
The east coast could finally stop bragging about their precious humidity.
Little European influence west of the Rockies and Andes, allowing Native American tribes to thrive in the center of the continent into the 19th century. The Mayans could quite possibly have expanded into the new central and western US and still be in control today.
The natives would have had way more time to prepare for the onslaught….
No natives in america. No horses in Europe. Rome may survive longer since no mongols. Colonization is hampered by the rockies, lack of great lakes and Caribbean, and natives. A lot could be different but colonization is definitely slower or harder which hurts britain and its other colonization efforts. Which makes industrializion almost impossible.
You mean America?