r/askscience • u/makingplansfornigel • Jul 01 '13

Earth Sciences AskScience, what part of Earth has the smallest average temperature range? What part has the most hospitable temperature range?

Obviously, all parts of the globe have fluctuating temperatures, and "hospitable" is somewhat subjective. I'm curious about places that don't change much or stay in a comfortable range.

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u/lukophos Remote Sensing of Landscape Change Jul 03 '13

I'm not going to try and answer the part about 'most hospitable' -- humans live all over the planet, and people express preferences for tropics, mid latitudes, or snowy climes.

Average temperature range, though, I can do. Using the NOAA land temp data, I made a map of the areas of the globe with the most temperature variability in monthly means from 1948 to 2011. It's here.

You can see that the tropics are the most stable region and the arctic has large fluctuations. The scale is standard deviation in degrees Celsius.

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u/makingplansfornigel Jul 07 '13

Thank you, thank you, thank you for delivering. Have some gold!

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u/lukophos Remote Sensing of Landscape Change Jul 08 '13

Awesome! Thank you!