Moving the Earth's Axis of Rotation

[ffutures]

Mists, fogs, cold rains, and other nuisances of the older civilization, have been abolished, for the pole of the earth has been tilted round so that an almost tropical climate prevails through the whole of England.

The Struggle for Empire - Introduction

Assuming that (a) you could change the earth's axis of rotation to any line through its centre of gravity without harmful side effects, (b) you wanted to give Britain a warm climate, and (C) you don't want to make the American or German climates much worse, where would you put the North and South poles? Technology available includes antigravity, force fields that can keep heat out, and apparently limitless powerful sources.

later Forgot to say that I'm trying to think of a way of doing it that doesn't make Alaska, Canada and New Zealand and Australia a lot colder. I forgot to mention that in the original post, for which my bad, but there's so much mineral wealth in Alaska that I suspect the Empire would be VERY reluctant to see it under an ice cap.

Also forgot to say that I'm thinking in terms of a Mediterranean climate for Britain, so 15 degrees further south (as suggested by dsample is probably about right.

timill has suggested putting the N. Pole somewhere in Siberia rather than Alaska, which works well with the history of the setting and a defeated Russian empire, that puts the S. Pole nearer the tip of S. America - again I can live with that, though I'll need to sit down with some maps and work it out properly. Before I go with that and start drawing maps etc. (or looking for something that will do the job for me) does anyone have any other suggestions?

Comments

[timill]

First decide what latitude you want London to lie on. Then consider where the poles could be so that London was at that latitude (this is the same circle that would be that latitude if London were the pole).

Repeat the process for (say) New York. The points of intersection of these circles are the solutions for the location of one pole.

Somewhere in Siberia seems promising...

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Siberia does sound good - and I think the only place that ends up colder in the southern hemisphere is the tip of S. America, which again can probably be lived with.

[dsample.livejournal.com]

I'd tilt the Earth about 15 degrees, moving England down to about where Spain is. It keeps most of North America at about the same latitude. Alaska and the Yukon end up a bit farther north, but they're used to cold weather. Germany gets about the same climate upgrade as England, moving it down to about Italy's latitude.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

That was pretty much my first thought, but I'm trying to think of a way of doing it that doesn't make Alaska, Canada and New Zealand a lot colder. I forgot to mention that in the original post, for which my bad, but there's so much mineral wealth in Alaska that I suspect the Empire would be VERY reluctant to see it under an ice cap.

[raygungothic.livejournal.com]

If they have asteroid mining, how much do they need to care about Alaska? Even if they do, wouldn't the mines be giant climate-controlled underground caverns and never mind how cold it is on top?

New Zealand, though, is a tricky one.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that they're into asteroid mining - planets have breathable air and the antigravity can apparently lift almost everything (e.g. there's a fleet of 200-gun flying battleships) so the asteroids probably just get used for target practice.

[dsample.livejournal.com]

How much do they care about central Africa?

Stick one of the poles in the middle of it, close to the equator, the other ends up in the middle of the Pacific ocean. Central Africa becomes like Antarctica, but the fringes should still be mostly habitable. The oil of Northern Africa and the Persian Gulf is just as accessible as Alaskan or Canadian oil is now. The mid Pacific becomes the new Arctic Ocean, most of Europe, Asia, North and South America, New Zealand and Australia end up with either temperate, or tropical climates, and you get a bunch of nice tropical archipelagos where Antarctica, Greenland, and Nunavut used to be.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Nice - it would certainly work for my purposes - totally screws up most ecosystems, but that was pretty much a given anyway...

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

And there's all the big game hunting they can want on the other planets, I'd imagine, so losing Africa isn't that big a deal for the Empire...

[dsample.livejournal.com]

Or just transplant a breeding stock of elephants and whatever to game farms in North America (which will now be equatorial.)

[dsample.livejournal.com]

On a related note, have you read Verne's "The Purchase of the North Pole"?

The same bunch who fired some guys to the Moon in "From the Earth to the Moon" discover there are vast coal reserves under the North Pole, buy up the rights to them, and then try to change the Earth's rotation, so they can go mine it. They built an even bigger gun into the side of Mount Kilimanjaro, planning for the recoil from firing it tilt the Earth. (Fortunately for the world, they miscalculated on how big their gun would have to be, and it really didn't do anything.)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Thanks - hadn't heard of that one. Sounds silly!

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Especially given the lack of land under the pole...

[dsample.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but no one had been there at the time he wrote it. ("Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" also had open water at the South Pole.)

[nelc.livejournal.com]

Worth considering is the effect on ocean currents, and the location of deserts. Is Britain going to lose the Gulf Stream? The Sahara will move 15° down Africa, while the deserts of North America will move up to, maybe Seattle and the Canadian border? Meanwhile, Australia has a reasonable chance of becoming a bit greener, and the Gobi will move into the heart of China. (All estimates that might change if I get a globe and remap the Hadley cells properly.)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Oh, there are all sorts of horrible side-effects obvious to a modern eye, but they aren't mentioned in the book so I will have to hand-wave them away somehow...

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Another problem is that the world isn't a sphere, it's an oblate spheroid, and the distribution of water in the oceans is influenced by its spin.

If you change the spin axis, the equatorial water bulge is going to move very quickly... the equatorial land bulge rather more slowly. (And it's going to have some immense earthquakes as it does so.) Cue a rapid changing of coastlines around the planet!

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

One has to assume that the scientists who did this knew what they were doing, and that nobody important (e.g. British) died in the resulting series of ecological catastrophes...

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Hmm - I'm not sure how to do it - but I'm all in favour...

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Well yes, apart from the tidal waves etc...

I REALLY wish he'd said they did something a bit easier, like move Britain to the Mediterranean or something!

"I'll need to sit down with some maps and work it out properly"

[dsample.livejournal.com]

I find Google Earth to be really useful for visualizing this sort of thing (since I don't own an actual globe.) You can twist the Earth around every which way, and set it spinning around whatever axis you want to see where various lands end up.