I used to think I would like to live in England, but after a couple weeks of soggy, wet, gray and cold (but not cold enough for serious snow), I think probably not.
I realize not all England is like that, but I don’t know how I’d do living through months of this.
I’ve always thought that one of the big drawbacks to the British Isles is how far north they are, which means that even though the climate is pretty temperate, the winters must be awful with such short days. I can’t imagine living in Scotland and not being depressed a lot of the time.
IDK how far north the UP of Michigan is compared to British Isles, but I spent 4 years/winters at Michigan Tech. The days were short in the winter and the snow was horrible…averaged more than 200 inches a year during my stay which is normal for the Keewenaw Peninsula in Michigan. It could be depressing at times –especially when you’re 550 miles away from family and only go home for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Spring break.
For reference, Houghton MI is 47 degrees N latitude. Inverness is 57 degrees N latitude, which puts it a hair farther south than Juneau, and considerably north of Edmonton. Edinburgh and Glasgow are closer to 56, so still a big difference.
When I lived in London a local friend used to point out that the City wasn’t actually that rainy but overcast an absurd amount of the time. Fortunately there’s lots to do culturally indoors there, ’cause it’s awfully dreary, and I have to admit it got to me.
I don’t mind cold or snow — my hometown hit 41 below the other day, which admittedly is a little chilly even by our standards! — but endless grey doesn’t do good things for my mood. OTOH if the sky is bright blue with white puffy clouds, I’ll put on a toque and be happy regardless of the temperature.
While I’m of that island’s stock, I have to remind myself I’m also descended on both sides from people who decided to leave..
I used to think heredity had a lot to do with cold tolerance, then a friend moved to Alaska for a few years. When he came back he couldn’t stand the warmth of a 70 degree room and had to go out onto the 30 degree back porch to cool off. He said his body had become accustomed to the cold.
Maybe heredity was part of it, but it seemed clear he had changed. And when I read tales of the Klondike and such, it seems obvious they’re simply operating on a different scale than I am.
I think variety even within a given family sets an upper limit on what role heredity plays.. IIRC separated twin studies tend to show that lots of different things seem to have between a 1/3rd and 2/3rds correlation. So by the time you get to non-twins you’re down to “some effect”.
Probably the most noticeable effects are on the mean and the extremes: controlling somehow for culture, I’d be willing to bet that a randomly selected person from a northern people would handle the cold better than a randomly selected person from an equatorial people, and that the people most likely to have problems with extreme temperatures are from the groups you’d expect.
Culture (via technology) also plays a role in limiting the effects, I guess — if your culture invents something that keeps you warm enough during the winter to, ahem, ensure future generations, then your dislike of the cold isn’t going to be that strongly selected against.
Since I seem to be talking about places I’ve been a lot, I still remember my first week in Hong Kong, the most humid place I’ve ever been (Okinawa was the hottest.) Wasn’t sure I was going to survive, but I eventually got used to it– one of the Irish students gave up after a week. It was oddly encouraging that one of the local real estate guys was sweating profusely during our walkaround, it showed that there wasn’t some magic skill the locals possessed, they thought it got bad too.
I lived in the Netherlands, particularly in a city (Utrecht) that is roughly as far north as London. While it was often rather cloudy (which had given the Dutch Masters something interesting the paint), the winters were not nearly as harsh and brutal as they were in the late 70s in Greater Cincinnati.
Yes, the climate in Europe is much more temperate, but there’s nothing you can do about seven hours of daylight. That’s what would get to me
I never noticed that we get so little daylight. Whenever I am not at my desk, I am getting nothing done. I now live in central Europe (in Prague), but that’s still pretty far north when you consider that Chicago and Rome are roughly on the same latitude.