[Space]: Habitability modifiers for tidelocked and resonant worlds

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Brett

What is annual primary production per unit area around there? How does it compare with global average? The ocean off Alaska is absurdly productive, isn't it?

I don't have the statistics right to hand, but I do live in a farming region

True enough, though it comes to the same thing at TL8 and above and at Habitability 4 and above.

Not for the first couple of hundred years.

Why do you single out the east and west "poles"? I wouldn't have thought there would be a lot of difference among the points around the terminator.

That's how tidal bulges work. If the atmospheric pressure is low enough that you lose that 25% of the hydrosphere, you'll find that water frozen into a thick oval ice cap collected around the west pole, while at the east pole you'll find the water collected into permanent high tide, which is often very high indeed since the gravitic attraction is greater than that of the moon.

Plants will grow between 0 C and 40 C, whereas the temperature range between hot pole and cold pole is likely on the close order of 100 K. A nice broad band around the twilight zone might possibly be of an equable temperature, but unless the planet on the whole is rather cool it's likely to be rather dimly lit, a constraint on photosynthesis/primary production. What effect on carrying capacity would you suggest?

More often that not, the tidelocked worlds will be comparatively cool because it's difficult to fit a world into the red or even orange dwarf habitable zone. However another consideration is that quantity has a quality all it's own. The light may be dim but it never turns off. 24 hours of continuous sunlight is pretty respectable even if it isn't the best sunlight.