Question

What will happen if the earth's axis was straight?

Answer 1

Without the axial tilt the relationship of the Earth to the Sun would always be as it is on the day of the Equinoxes. This is when the Sun is exactly above the Earth’s equator.

Now we get equinoxes twice each year, and as we orbit the sun and our relationship changes between the solstices, we get the seasons. If this did not happen it would be a very different world.

Here are some of the things that might be different:

The arctic and antarctic would get sun every day of the year, and the extremes of cold a those regions would not exist. They would still be the coldest part of the world, but they would not have 24 hour days, and midnight Sun would not exist.Because polar regions and high altitudes would get night and day the same length all the time, these and other cold areas would likely be warmer as they would not have the winter to develop the deep frozen coldness that supports the ice caps and glaciers that are important now.Would we still get snow, certainly it is possible, but I expect it would be confined to further north and south than now. Areas that currently get at the time of the equinoxes may still get snow.We would not experience summer and winter. The seasons would not exist, and all of the traditions, mythology, activities and human experience that goes with them would not exist.While the tropics may have mostly a similar climate as they do now, the constancy of temperature differential between the tropics and the southern and northern latitudes would result in completely different weather patterns and ocean currents.These differences in ocean currents and air currents would create a significantly different climate. How this would be different requires quite a bit more time to think about!Plant evolution would be significantly different. Seasons are such an important factor in the behaviour of plants, when and how they grow.This in turn affects how animals have evolved. For example there would be no need for winter hibernation, or breeding seasons. We would probably not recognise the Earth’s biosphere.

This is a really interesting thought experiment. The seasons are so important to us. Right now I am inside because it is a bright summer’s day and too hot to go out and do anything active. It’s possible where you are that it is snowing and you can’t go outside for different reasons. Above the arctic circle they are hunkered down for nights that don’t end. In Antarctica the scientists are busy because it is their season for working, and they get 24 hours of sunlight to do it.

Here the kangaroos are panting and resting, and the grass is drying out. In the Northern hemisphere the bears are hibernating and the trees have lost their leaves.

The Earth’s axial tilt has such an effect on the geography, the climate, the biology and human culture that our world without it would be very different.

Answer 2

Answer:

Seasons would not occur