So, Winter has Come, The Long Winter

[Grizzly A Mormont]

We, as Earthlings, have our own unique understanding of seasons. Our planet takes 365.25 axial revolutions to orbit its central star just once. Our annual seasons are due to Earth having a tilted axis.

For us, one single year marks one trip around the sun.

The concept of a winter lasting 2-5 years, like foretold in the Game of Thrones, is a mind fuck for me. Dragons and White Walkers are nothing compared to a 5 year winter.  

They must measure their years on something other than a single revolution around the sun. Maybe they count that days based on their moon(s) or some other factor.

 

What would cause some winters and summers to be longer or shorter than those of the past.

An irrelgular elliptical orbit around its sun(s)?

Climate change? Maybe there is a volcanic range in their world, that when active, Westoros has longer summers and when inactive has winters?

Or does it have more to do with Majik?

[StoneColdJorahMormont]

When anything is far fetched or inexplicable on the show the easy answer = Magic

or maybe the weight of the gaint folk weigh the planet down... and during winter they eat more and breed

[Sparksen]

1 winter in GoT is 5 years and 1 summer is also 5 years (hopefully) so 1 earth year=10 GoT years (7 good and 7 bad years^^ again something religious^^)

when it is not magic then the GoT earth is 2,877 × 10^9 km +/- 10^8 away from the sun (position jupiter^^) but the normal temperatur on upiter is -103C° so the sun needs to be very hot/very huge BUT a very huge sun has a way bigger force of attraction and that gravitation grows faster than temperatur. so the Got earth must be way bigger (longer days?) and the sun also^^

so yes it is possible^^

[Lord Lannister]

You can't write a mathematical formula to define magic.

[Darksky]

1 hour ago, StoneColdJorahMormont said:

When anything is far fetched or inexplicable on the show the easy answer = Magic

 

You mean in ASOIAF, since Martin made up those irregular seasons in the first place.

[StoneColdJorahMormont]

1 minute ago, Darksky said:

You mean in ASOIAF, since Martin made up those irregular seasons in the first place.

Well i don't read the books and don't know what parts in the show match up with the books, so just said show be it writers or GRRM himself.

[Darksky]

Well now you know, it's Martin's "brilliant" idea.

[Future Null Infinity]

I think that Planetos is in three stars system (in the stable phase, this thing can't remain stable for very long), the planet will have an irregular orbit depending on the positions of the 3 stars which will affect the lengths of the seasons, here's a simulation

[Grizzly A Mormont]

19 minutes ago, Future Null Infinity said:

I think that Planetos is in three stars system (in the stable phase, this thing can't remain stable for very long) but the planet will have an irregular orbit depending on the positions of the 3 stars which will affect the lengths of the seasons, here's a simulation

I imagined a double star system with 'Planetos' having an irregular/unstable elliptical orbit with another  planets proximity with each orbit. That simulation is beyond what I imagined. 

Thank you for sharing that.

[Grizzly A Mormont]

3 hours ago, Sparksen said:

1 winter in GoT is 5 years and 1 summer is also 5 years (hopefully) so 1 earth year=10 GoT years (7 good and 7 bad years^^ again something religious^^)

when it is not magic then the GoT earth is 2,877 × 10^9 km +/- 10^8 away from the sun (position jupiter^^) but the normal temperatur on upiter is -103C° so the sun needs to be very hot/very huge BUT a very huge sun has a way bigger force of attraction and that gravitation grows faster than temperatur. so the Got earth must be way bigger (longer days?) and the sun also^^

so yes it is possible^^

Not all seasons are 5 years long. They came to the end of longest summer in recent memory. Jon Snow was asked how many winters he has seen. He said 7,8 or 9. I don't remember exactly. But if they were always 5 years long, Jon would have been over 70 years old when he joined The Nights Watch.

[Sparksen]

mhh okay (its obviously magic but i like theoritizing^^)

but when it is not magic than maybe is the earth losing his orbit around the sun and winter/summer are getting longer and longer^^

or the earth is moving slower around the sun O.o something is slowing earth^^ and one day the earth will stop and they will burn/freeze to death^^

[Runaway Penguin]

Or Planetos has pretty stable and boring orbit with no regular seasons (basically orbit with no tilt) and the winters are combination of sun activity and, say, volcanoes at Asshai souting more or less dust?

[Prince of the North]

ASoIaF seasons could be "explained" by an irregular orbit and/or the planet (Os) irregularly tilting on its axis...or some combination of the two 

[Adam_Up_Bxtch]

I imagine George just thinking it'd be cool and edgy to have old men telling young kids that they had to wait out a 5 year winter by eating human remains north of a giant ice wall then tell the youngsters how easy they have it

 

Don't think he put much thought into the science side of the years long seasons. 

[littleRickon]

On 7/31/2016 at 4:59 AM, Future Null Infinity said:

I think that Planetos is in three stars system (in the stable phase, this thing can't remain stable for very long), the planet will have an irregular orbit depending on the positions of the 3 stars which will affect the lengths of the seasons, here's a simulation

that's a cool simulation but I don' think it explains irregular seasons very much. Also we never have anyone in the story mentioning another sun, let alone two. Given how much we hear about the red comet, you'd think someone would mention that. 

This topic has been discussed a lot. I really think there is not much else than "magic" that we can use to explain it. GRRM certainly hasn't had anyhting scientific in mind when writing it and I don't think something can be constructed ex post. We have a clear reference that the seasons are still linked to the duration of days, so there is an axis tilt, and the progression of the planet through it's orbit is what's driving seasons, not some other celestial bodies or the distance to the sun or something. It's just that the progression on the orbit is highly irregular. If GRRM was a science nerd, the book would have opened with "let's assume that Kepler's second law doesn't hold true in this world" and the book would have been poorer for it...

[A spoon of knife and fork]

11 hours ago, littleRickon said:

that's a cool simulation but I don' think it explains irregular seasons very much. Also we never have anyone in the story mentioning another sun, let alone two. Given how much we hear about the red comet, you'd think someone would mention that. 

This topic has been discussed a lot. I really think there is not much else than "magic" that we can use to explain it. GRRM certainly hasn't had anyhting scientific in mind when writing it and I don't think something can be constructed ex post. We have a clear reference that the seasons are still linked to the duration of days, so there is an axis tilt, and the progression of the planet through it's orbit is what's driving seasons, not some other celestial bodies or the distance to the sun or something. It's just that the progression on the orbit is highly irregular. If GRRM was a science nerd, the book would have opened with "let's assume that Kepler's second law doesn't hold true in this world" and the book would have been poorer for it...

I tend to think that like most planets, the planet where Westeros is, is not on a tilt, and the seasons experienced in Westeros are entirely magical.  I'm not sure what the reality of life / weather planets would be on an earth-like planet with no axial tilt (and thus no seasons) but you could in some way probably call it an "endless summer", at least for regions which get appropriate sun/rainfall.  

A calendar year, presumably, could still be calculated by Maesters and such based on the positions of other planets and stars relative to the sun, rather than on the dates of the equinox and solstices. 

[littleRickon]

13 hours ago, A spoon of knife and fork said:

I tend to think that like most planets, the planet where Westeros is, is not on a tilt, and the seasons experienced in Westeros are entirely magical.  I'm not sure what the reality of life / weather planets would be on an earth-like planet with no axial tilt (and thus no seasons) but you could in some way probably call it an "endless summer", at least for regions which get appropriate sun/rainfall.  

A calendar year, presumably, could still be calculated by Maesters and such based on the positions of other planets and stars relative to the sun, rather than on the dates of the equinox and solstices. 

without axis tilt, why do the days get shorter?

That is, if you are looking for an "occams razor" scenario that is as close as possible to non-fantasy reality. Of course no one could actually prove that planetos isn't the center of that universe, and their sun moves around them at non-regular intervals... I don't want to strawman too much here, but if you think that the celestial mechanics of Westeros are somewhat similar to ours, then "days getting shorter" (which we have textual evidence for) means axial tilt. At least I don't know any other sensible reason for the change of sunlight hours per day....

Now if only someone would take a boat to the southern hemisphere (hemispheros) and see if the north's long night is the south's eternal summer....

[A spoon of knife and fork]

2 hours ago, littleRickon said:

without axis tilt, why do the days get shorter?

That is, if you are looking for an "occams razor" scenario that is as close as possible to non-fantasy reality. Of course no one could actually prove that planetos isn't the center of that universe, and their sun moves around them at non-regular intervals... I don't want to strawman too much here, but if you think that the celestial mechanics of Westeros are somewhat similar to ours, then "days getting shorter" (which we have textual evidence for) means axial tilt. At least I don't know any other sensible reason for the change of sunlight hours per day....

As far as I know, the days only get shorter during the long winters.  So, I guess in my scenario the reason would be the same as to why the weather changes, which is magic.  Presumably, in winter it would be dark without the sun actually setting, but you'd think people would take note of that. 

2 hours ago, littleRickon said:

Now if only someone would take a boat to the southern hemisphere (hemispheros) and see if the north's long night is the south's eternal summer....

If only! 

[littleRickon]

On 8/5/2016 at 2:31 PM, A spoon of knife and fork said:

As far as I know, the days only get shorter during the long winters.  So, I guess in my scenario the reason would be the same as to why the weather changes, which is magic.  Presumably, in winter it would be dark without the sun actually setting, but you'd think people would take note of that. 

If only! 

I would have to get my books to quote exactly, but I'm quite certain there is a passage that reads "already the days were getting shorter". I think it's good old Ned in AGoT and leads to him realizing once agaon that winter is coming. If he thinks this, and no one has seen a long night in millenia, then it's reasonable to deduce that this is a regular phenomenon with all winters. Thus, axial tilt exists.

[SevasTra82]

I remember seeing an interview with GRRM where someone asked him about Planetos's axis talk and how it rotates around the sun, etc.

I can't recall exactly why he said but he just shook his head and said that he never even put that much thought to it and he was amazed that people actually try to figure out this stuff.  He was asked again about the winters and how it works and he just said "hell if I know, magic!!"  and did that iconic laugh of his.

So my point is...not even GRRM gives a crap about how the universe or the planets work.