Weather at Tolkien's Middle Earth mapped

Alyssa Danigelis
Discovery News

 J.R.R. Tolkien created a masterfully detailed world in his classic Lord of the Rings trilogy, right down to the topography and languages.

Now a British climate researcher has plugged Tolkien's maps into a supercomputer and predicted weather patterns for Middle Earth.

Dan Lunt, a scientist at the University of Bristol who specialises in climate modelling research, decided to put the Advanced Computing Research Center's supercomputer to a dorktastic test.
Lunt took Tolkien's detailed maps of Middle Earth showing continents and mountains, and essentially "scanned" them into the supercomputer, the Guardian reported. Then he ran the numbers to get a 70-year model.

In a mock research paper published under the name Radagast the Brown, Lunt details climate details and weather predictions for Tolkien's fictional world. He compared the climate surrounding Mount Doom in the heart of Mordor to that of Los Angeles and western Texas. He argues that those areas have dry, hot climates with little vegetation and therefore match the conditions in fictional Mordor.

Lunt also concludes that the Shire's climate would have been close to that of real UK "shires" Lincolnshire or Leicestershire. Other insights include: "The climate of Middle Earth has a similar distribution to that of Western Europe and North Africa" and "Ships sailing for the Undying Lands in the West set off from the Grey Havens due to the prevailing winds in that region."

Dwarfs and elves can read the mock paper, too.

Lunt told the Guardian that the exercise does have a serious side. Our climate models have become incredibly powerful, bringing together our understanding of science, fluid mechanics, cloud convection, sun radiation, biology and other factors.

"And because of that, they're not just tuned for the modern Earth, they can simulate any climate," Lunt said. Including ones that only exist in the future.

Climate change

The climate of England has been characterized as generally damp and relatively sunless but, as every native knows, the weather is as various as the land. In the south-east the summers are warm and the winters are cold, while in the north-west the winters are mild and the summers are cool. In the north-west four and a half hours of sunshine light up an average July day, while on the south coast six and a half hours can be anticipated; the western seaboard attracts 40 per cent more rainfall than the eastern. The predominant wind of autumn and of winter is from the south-west; in the spring it is the east. This was the weather that created a land of damp forests of oak and ash, of marshes and heath wrapped in mist. In the north and the west lay the moors and the mountains, where the soil was thin. This was the land of pasture rather than of crops, and the local farmers grew only as much corn as they needed for themselves. The south and east were the lowlands, with gradual undulations in the rich earth; this was ground as fit for corn as for cattle. It was the territory of ‘mixed farming’.

In the history of England these patterns of climate are of the utmost importance; if there is a drop in temperature of two degrees, as in the period from 500 to 300 BC, the prospect of adequate harvests in the north is noticeably curtailed. A difference of one degree made a failure of the harvest seven times more likely. In this period, then, we see the abandonment of upland farms and settlements. The southern land was warmer, and more stable; it was the home of the plentiful harvest, and the general dampness meant that crops could even be grown on lighter soils where sand and chalk prevailed. It is a general truth, therefore, that in the south-east the land was devoted to wheat whereas in the north it was given over to oats. But important regional variations were still found. Oxfordshire and north-east Suffolk grew wheat, whereas Norfolk grew more rye. Oats were the main crop in Lancashire, while rye was dominant in Yorkshire. Wheat and barley shared the ascendancy in Wiltshire whereas, in the rainier country west of that shire, barley predominated.

The people of the south were wealthier if not healthier than their counterparts in the north. So the climate is active in human history. It may also be that the drier east creates human communities different from those of the rainier west; marked contrasts of social systems in the first millennium BC are in fact evident, with small centres of lordly power in the west and more scattered settlements in the east. The isolated farmhouse and the small hamlet were characteristic of the north and west; the village and the manorial system of common cultivation were more usual in the south and east.

At the time of the Roman occupation the weather was warmer than at any period in subsequent history, but this was succeeded by colder and wetter conditions by the end of the fourth century. For ten years, beginning in AD 536, there was a very low level of sunlight; this would have been a time of dearth and famine, hitherto unrecorded. It might also be noted that Alfred was credited with the invention of a clock that allowed him to tell the time when the prevailing fogs obscured the sun.

The climate of 1009 and 1010 was recorded by a Benedictine monk, Byrhtferth, who dwelled in East Anglia; the winter lasted from 7 November to 6 February, being cold and moist; the spring from 7 February to 8 May was moist and hot; summer from 9 May to 6 August was hot and dry; autumn from 7 August to 6 November was dry and cold. He was only one of the clerics who kept a detailed record of the conditions of the weather.

The eleventh and twelve centuries were in fact warmer than those immediately preceding them, but a deterioration of climate took place in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; the annals of these later centuries also mention the increasing incidence of floods and droughts, suggesting greater instability. Hard frosts lasted into spring, and violent gales brought down the trees of the forests. The Thames froze in the winter of 1309–10, and the years 1315 and 1316 were marked by endless rain. The harvests failed, and the dead were buried in common graves. It was a time of epidemic disease. Crime rates rose proportionately.

The increase of rainfall, in the fourteenth century, is marked by the construction of drainage ditches and house platforms; church floors were raised, and the lower halves of some villages were deserted. The carpenter in Chaucer’s ‘The Miller’s Tale’ reveals an obsessive fear of another Great Flood covering the earth. The extraordinary wind of 14 January 1362 was widely believed to be a harbinger of the Day of Judgment. In the medieval period the weather is the lord of all. Outer weather creates inner weather. It would be possible to write the history of England as the history of the English climate.

Ancient Aztecs

Originally constructed in 1325 and then added to and extended six times afterwards, the massive Templo Mayor citadel of Tenochtitlan was surely one of the wonders of the ancient world, towering over the Aztec city state's other structures at close to 30 m (90 ft) in height. Indeed, by the time it was eventually sacked and destroyed by the Spanish conquistadors of the 16th century, the pyramid temple consisted of four steep sloped terraces topped with a great platform measuring 80 x 100 m (262 x 328 ft), with a further two sets of stone stairs leading to a pair of grand shrines. Every part of the temple was decorated with carvings and surrounding it lay a vast stone-slabbed precinct that measured 4,000 m2 (43,000 ft2) filled with balustrades and further decorative aspects. Not bad considering it was constructed by slaves and working-class craftsmen under the direction of a ruling class of learned architects and mathematicians. 

Indeed, El Templo Mayor was arguably the culmination of the advanced construction techniques mastered by the Aztecs over their civilisation's tenure in Central America. From the sculpting of vast blocks of stone from dedicated quarries for its terraces - the Aztecs were the first culture to industrialise this process in Central and South America - to utilising scaffolds and rope lifts to transport men and tools up its structure and onto the expert craftsmanship that allowed them to carve vast ornamental dragons and mix polychrome paints to decorate the temple's exterior, El Templo Mayor became the temple of temples. Indeed, if it were not for the sudden obliteration of their society by the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortés, who knows how much higher and more complicated their temples could have grown?

A civilisation now lost in time, the ancient Aztecs were masters of science and technology, creating medicines, machines and mega-structures unsurpassed on Earth.

Despite being isolated within the deep, dark, unforgiving jungles of Central America, for over 300 years the ancient Aztecs defied their reputation as blood-obsessed barbarians by pioneering many of the scientific and technological advances we take for granted today. What's more, they did so across a broad range of fields, from astronomy to medicine, hoarding their acquired knowledge within huge libraries of codices that contained the secrets to the vast and impressive society they had built. Unfortunately, much of this knowledge was lost forever when the Spanish conquistadors of Hernan Cortés brought the civilisation to their knees in the early-16th century, with these supposedly heretical texts burned en masse. Luckily, a few records of Aztec scientific knowledge survived and today historians are working tirelessly to unlock their secrets. Read on to discover some of their most impressive scientific knowledge.

Marvelous mathematicians

Buried deep within the Codex Vergara (a cadastral manuscript) lies a wealth of information about Aztec mathematics, which has now been decoded and revealed to be a vigesimal system rather than our decimal system in use today. The Aztec vigesimal system uses 20 as its base, with written dots equating to one, hyphen-style bars equating to five and various other symbols accounting for 20 and multiples thereof. According to the Vergara, as well as other codices, this system was employed for tax purposes, which was largely based on land owned, as well as for commerce, with quantities of produce traded with precision thanks to the creation of hard rules for addition, subtraction, division and multiplication. Of all the pre- Columbian peoples of Central America, the Aztecs were the most accomplished mathematicians, using a unique numbering system for arithmetic, record keeping and even in a taxation system for Tenochtitlan and the surviving lands. 

Land was also measured mathematically, with a selection of algorithms utilised to calculate area, the most basic being the multiplication of length by width, while multiplying the averages of two opposite sides by an adjacent side used for irregular shapes. Land was measured in terms of `land rods', which was the standard Aztec unit of linear measurement, measuring in at 2.5 metres (8 feet) in length. For measurements under a land rod, a variety of other symbols including arrows, hearts and hands were used for indication. This level of mathematical precision also stretched into other areas, such as construction, which was one area where the Aztecs were most advanced in terms of technological prowess. 

Kings of construction

As can be seen in the `El Templo Mayor' boxout, the Aztecs became specialists at building stepped pyramid temples and public buildings, cutting, carving and hauling vast stone blocks and arranging them with exact geometrical precision. They were also excellent house builders, with even the poorest commoner typically living under human-made shelters, with the average dwelling measuring in at approximately 20 square metres (215 square foot) in the capital city of Tenochtitlan. Due to their environment, Aztec houses tended to be built on elevated platforms crafted from wattle-and-daub, with codices indicating that they stood approximately 40 centimetres (15 inches) off the surface. This was particularly important in the swampy city of Tenochtitlan. Walls were constructed from wooden frames and then filled in with stone, sand, lime and clay with adobe bricks - sculpted from a mixture of water, sand and clay - very common. 

Roofs ranged in both design and construction materials, with both flat-pole and peaked roofs widespread and everything from straw through to wood and bricks used. Judging from excavated evidence as well as the information deciphered from surviving codices, a selection of construction tools were utilised in each build, ranging from cutting tools such as knifes and axes through to trowels and picks, with additional carvings undertaken if the house's patron was particularly wealthy. Important nobles would often have their dwellings painted, with the Aztecs using natural plant and animal ingredients - such as beetles, eg the cochineal species containing red carminic acid - to create coloured dyes and paints. Buildings were arranged within a city in terms of importance, which relied largely upon the Aztecs' mastery of astronomy. 

Awesome astronomers

As revealed in the Aztec Codex Mendoza, Aztec priests and nobles were accomplished astronomers, accruing and storing the knowledge of deciphering the night sky for centuries and handing it down through generations in isolation from the wider world. Records show that as well as being capable of accurately tracking the movements of celestial bodies such as the Sun, Moon and other planets - which they accomplished by placing sets of crossed wooden poles along their site lines - they utilised that information to create a religious and solar calendar as well as orientate their key structures along equinoctial lines. For example, the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan was aligned so that on the spring equinox (21 March) the Sun rose directly between its two top-mounted shrines, with ceremonies held there in dedication of it. 

From their ability to navigate by the position of the stars, through to their creation of solar calendar and onto their construction of temples in perfect alignment so that the Sun's rays shone focussed on their summit during the equinox, the Aztecs were truly expert astronomers. Astronomy was practised primarily by Aztec nobility and priests, with the latter using dedicated observatories within temples to track the movements of celestial bodies. 

By harnessing the knowledge of the celestial cycles, the Aztecs could also use astronomy to track the length of a solar year and lunar month, as well as determine the duration of Venus's orbit and the prediction of any solar or lunar eclipses. According to depictions in Aztec codices, they also became extremely skilled at timing the appearances of comets and asteroids and often marked such occasions with ritualistic events. 

Of course, the most practical everyday application of Aztec astronomy was in their construction of a calendar, which included both a 365-day annual solar calendar as well as 260-day divination calendar. The former calendar was physically manifested in Tenochtitlan as the Calendar Stone, displayed so that all could keep track of the passing of time. 

Formidable farmers

One area where the Aztecs utilised their scientific and technological ingenuity to maximum effect was in their farming practices. Living in and around large swamps and lake-heavy areas of Central America, the Aztecs designed and employed terracing and artificial island systems to ensure crops had optimal land area to grow. They built aqueducts and dug channels to ensure crops were irrigated, and crafted their own tools and basic farming machines for crop planting and harvesting. The most common crop grown by the Aztecs was maize (corn), but due to their mastery of the art many other crops such as squashes, beans, avocados and guavas were delivered. 

With their largest city-state of Tenochtitlan built in the middle of Lake Texcoco and housing north of 200,000 people, a large and consistent food supply was necessary for the Aztecs. Their mastery of irrigation and the chinampas construction system meant that vast fields of produce were grown all-year-round, with maize, beans, squash and much more grown with a frequency unsurpassed on the continent. The Aztecs also harnessed knowledge of nutrition, specifically in terms of the health of soils and water when used to grow crops. Indeed, the Aztecs operated one of the most advanced crop-rotation systems ever created: their knowledge that certain crops deplete the land of specific nutrients was used to ensure soils were always cycled for a new type of produce, granting it time to recover. Further, specific crops were partnered with ones ensuring a nutritional balance within the planting area, with the combination ensuring that farms maximised crop yield for every square metre of land used. The Aztecs also grew many herbs within their systems, with these used in another specialist Aztec science; herbology. 

Masters of medicine

Aztecs' understanding of medicinal science was incredibly advanced for the time. In a period where most western nations were still addressing illnesses with either prayer or misguided placebos, Aztec civilisation granted prestige to the position of doctor and encouraged them to study the human body and potential remedies in depth. Among these studies, those of plants and their medicinal effects were central, from which Aztec doctors fashioned antispasmodic medications capable of preventing muscle spasms during surgery, according to codices such as the Codex " Aztecs granted prestige to the position of doctor and encouraged them to study the human body and potential remedies" Barberini, commonly referred to as the `Aztec Herbal.' This was primarily achieved through the use of the passion flower. Other inventions included organic paste painkillers, liquid rubber for curing earaches and ground obsidian for the sealing of wounds. 

Aztec physicians became the most skilled herbalists in the world, thanks to their in-depth study of the human body and their environment. Indeed, along with the establishment of hospitals, Aztec doctors were encouraged to undertake research, studying the effects of plants grown in large communal gardens. On top of this scientific approach, Aztec doctors accrued significant general medical knowledge that today we take for granted, including that people should not look at eclipses to prevent against vision damage, steam baths could cleanse the skin and sinuses and that specific foods were better for the human body than others. 

These vast banks of knowledge allowed the Aztecs to scientifically and technologically surpass many of Earth's other ancient cultures, and in a fraction of the time, with the Mesoamerican peoples taking mere centuries to build a society the others - such as Ancient Egypt’s - took thousands of years to build. The secrets of science that they uncovered have, on the whole, withstood the test of time, with salvaged knowledge from the ancient culture leading to further developments in their field and contributing greatly to the sciences as they exist today.

Hubble telescope captures spouting water vapour plumes on Jupiter's icy moon Europa

An artistic illustration of Europa's icy surface with a water jet in the foreground. K Retherford/Southwest Research Institute

Towering plumes of water vapour have been observed blasting off Jupiter's icy moon Europa, which is believed to hold an underground ocean.

If confirmed as water vapour, the discovery could affect scientists' ideas on whether the moon has the right conditions for life, Southwest Research Institute planetary scientist Kurt Retherford said.

"We've only seen this at one location right now, so to try to infer that there's a global effect as a result of this is a little difficult at this time," Dr Retherford said.

The 200-kilometre-high plumes of water vapour were observed by researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope in December last year.

The jets were not seen during Hubble observations of the same region in October 1999 and November 2012. The now-defunct Galileo spacecraft, which made nine passes by Europa in the late 1990s, likewise did not detect any plumes.

"We have probably observed only one of the largest plumes on Europa," Dr Retherford told the BBC.

"There could be a lot of plumes, more like 10 to 50 kilometres high, and we're just not seeing them with our current data-sets."

Scientists believe the water vapour may be escaping from cracks in Europa's southern polar ice that open due to gravitational stresses when the moon is farthest from Jupiter.

"When Europa is close to Jupiter, it gets stressed and the poles get squished and the cracks close up," University of California planetary scientist Francis Nimmo said.

"Then, as it moves further away from Jupiter, it becomes un-squished, the pole moves outward and that's when the cracks open."

Scientists say the the plumes also could be the result of frictional heating from rubbing ice blocks or a fortuitously timed comet impact.

Similar jets have been detected on Saturn's moon Enceladus. Because Enceldus has 12 times less gravity than Europa, its plumes shoot much farther into space.

"We were really kind of surprised by the number, and we're grasping what that means," Dr Retherford said.

Additional Hubble observations are planned, as well as a review of archived Galileo data taken when Europa was farthest away from Jupiter.

"Now that we know where (the plumes) are, that narrows the window that we have in comparison to the passes that we've made," NASA planetary sciences chief Jim Green said.

"I think we'll have some other great results, or another controversy."

Hypothetical advanced underwater life such as might exist in Europa's ocean.

Image: © Adolf Schaller

Advanced life on Europa?

If microscopic organisms developed on Europa, is there the possibility that some of them have evolved into large, multicellular forms? Much depends on how freely oxygen, generated at the surface by the interaction between surface ice and intense incident radiation (from Jupiter's powerful magnetosphere), has been able to make its way down into the ocean. If the Europan sub-surface ocean is rich in ocean it would have the potential to support a rich diversity of complex life, including creatures as large or larger than the great whales on Earth.

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