The economics of most settings is poorly thought through. Generally that’s not really a problem, except for players who care about it.
/me raises hand.
Have you read The Last Day by Andrew Hunter Murray?
/me is an economist by training…
I have not. Is this a recommendation? ![]()
I enjoyed it. Its pretty lightweight but it is set in a world where the world has stopped spinning. (Seems to ignore that issues with gravity that would cause and mainly focusses on the effects of being in complete shadow or full sunlight).
Is this the same chap from the Private Eye and No such thing as a fish podcasts?
It is indeed
If this is a conventional planet, I don’t see what the issues with gravity would be?
I think there’s some limited effects to do with centrifugal force, but I agree, I’m sure what happens with gravity?
I’m not sure I consider ‘weather’ a limited effect.
Well I thought that was mostly covered with day and night cycles stopping, but I suppose I meant gravity isn’t especially impacted by a spinning object stopping spinning.
People at the equator would be slightly heavier, if I’m remembering an old article correctly. The bigger problem is that the magnetic field around the planet would shut down…
I have both of Andrew Hunter Murray’s novels. Still haven’t started either of them.
The problem I had with BLADES IN THE DARK isn’t the fact that the Sun has gone out.
Nor is it the fact that the world may now be hell. Nor the lack of food. (People who know me may gasp at that.)
But the fact that this city keeps functioning though there doesn’t seem to be an honest person in sight. They are all bent, even the honest working class. I don’t see why anything gets done if everybody is being a parasite on everybody else. You can only survive if certain necessary things are brought back from the ice-cold, black seas and then distributed to where they are needed. There isn’t time to waste ripping each other off and worshipping demons.
On the other hand, if some of the things I’ve heard about the current state of Russia are true perhaps I am being a cock-eyed optimist about the human race again.
Much weather is strongly influenced by Coriolis effects. With out that weather would be vastly different. I don’t know how, but it would be not good.
The effects having to do with centifugal force (and the Coriolis force) would start with winds and global atmospheric circulation (the Hadley cells, Ferrel cells, polar cells, intertropical convergence, trade winds, mid-latitude westerlies, etc.), and then move on to first the atmosphere, and then more slowly the oceans, and then over a span of a millennium or so the mantle conforming to the new, less oblate, geoid.
First the air pressure in polar regions would rise to the point of oxygen toxicity and nitrogen narcosis while in the tropics the air would thin to about what we now get at seven kilometres altitude (22,500 feet). The altitude limit of permanent human occupation is about 5.1 kilometres, but the actual death zone is above about 8 kilometres. Then the oceans would drain to the antarctic and arctic leaving the sea-beds exposed in the tropics. Then the crust would buckle at the equator as the mantle shrank under it) and split in high latitudes as the mantle swelled there.
The sun is still dumping energy into the atmosphere. The other side is radiating out to the 4K of space.
There would be substantial convection from that, because in the absence of the convection there would be a temperature gradient on the hot side, because insolation is uneven, and conduction heat loss to the cold side. I have no idea what that convection would look like, but I can absolutely guarantee it would happen. My guess is that it would be stormy as all hell, though.
There have been a couple of simulation studies. I found Merlis, T.M and Schneider, T “Atmospheric dynamics of Earth-like tidally locked aquaplanets” Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems – Discussion, 26 January 2010 the most accessible and informative that I have read.
My general impression overall is that convection would keep the dark side a lot warmer than I expected, certainly way too warm for atmospheric collapse. Deep oceans would freeze only to about three-to-five metres deep, with oceanic convection delivering sub-surface heat to the dark side. There are temperature and wind maps in Merlis & Scheider p. 5. For the case with 365-day rotation you get a roughly-circular warm patch around the subsolar point over 300°K but below 310°K; the dark side is surprisingly uniform, with temperature below 250°K but above 240°K. Evaporation and precipitation maps are on p.6, wind is on p.8.
The temperature limits of permanent human habitation are about 273°K and 303°K
Apologies that I wasn’t clear - I meant specifically limited effects on weight (as opposed to mass) as we were talking about gravity.
“So I’m stealing from you, and you’re stealing from him, and… who are we all stealing from in the end?”
“Dave. He just wants to do his job and get his pension. He’s in for a bit of a surprise about that.”
Yeah I thought the effect on weight (yes got it wrong, its not gravity) was bigger than it is - apparently only about 0.5% difference. Oh well.