What if the Earth rotated 90 degrees?

About this Video

• Video Title: What if the Earth rotated 90 degrees?
• Channel: xkcd's What If?
• Speakers: The speaker's name is not explicitly mentioned in the transcript.
• Duration: 00:06:47

Introduction

This video explores the hypothetical scenario of Earth's landmasses rotating 90 degrees, maintaining the axial tilt. The video investigates the resulting changes in climate zones, weather patterns, and the impact on various regions and major cities. It also speculates on the impact of an instantaneous versus gradual shift.

Key Takeaways

• Altered Climate Zones: A 90-degree rotation would drastically shift climate zones, with current polar regions becoming equatorial and vice versa. This would lead to significant changes in temperature and precipitation patterns.
• Shifted Weather Patterns: The Hadley, Ferrell, and Polar cells would redistribute, altering wind patterns, rainfall, and the locations of deserts and rainforests. New hurricane basins and tornado alleys would emerge.
• Impact on Continents: Each continent would experience dramatic climate changes. For example, North America's climate would flip north-south, with tropical conditions in the Arctic and icy conditions in Central America. Similarly, Asia and other continents would experience significant transformations.
• City-Specific Impacts: Major cities would face diverse effects. Some would become colder (e.g., Mexico City, Jakarta), some warmer (e.g., Moscow, London), and others would experience relatively minor changes (e.g., New York City, Seoul).
• Instantaneous vs. Gradual Shift: An instantaneous shift would be catastrophic, resulting in massive sea-level rise from melting ice caps and widespread ecological disruption. A gradual shift over millions of years would allow for some adaptation, but still profound changes.