Exotic Weather of Habitable Exoplanets

[Sindri]

What interesting weather or climate variations from Earth normal could exist on a habitable exoplanet in a hard science fiction game?

[Dammann]

The real answer is probably "not enough data." But that is dull.

But it is reasonable to think that planets with oceans and more tidal force could have some crazy tidal zones. More heat means more energy, so hotter planets might have more extreme weather (and more erosion). A planet with a thinner atmosphere might have a bigger temperature swing between day and nigh, with morning and evening winds. A planet closer to its star, or with a more flare-prone star might have more spectacular aurora borealis-type displays.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Dammann

. More heat means more energy, so hotter planets might have more extreme weather (and more erosion). A planet with a thinner atmosphere might have a bigger temperature swing between day and nigh, with morning and evening winds. .

You're getting closer with your thin atmosphere planet but no, more heat does not necessarily mean more weather. Venus has an atmosphre 90x denser than Earth and hundreds of degrees K hotter but it also has very little weather that we know of at the surface because the heat is uniformly distributed.

It's heat moving from the equator to the poles that's the big wheel that makes the smaller wheels of the climate machine go around on Earth.

This is what makes the people who want to blame any particular sttretch of bad weather on "global warming"......well, lets call them "naive". If you concentrated the increase in heat at the eqautor so there was a bigger differential with the Artic regions you might get worse hurricane seasons.

If you do the opposite and warm the poles more than the equator you could get less intense hurricane seasons. If the relative curve of heat exchange stays aboutt eh same so does the climate (barring over factars)

So to make the weather "more interesting" than it is on Earth you need more change and you need to (in general) make it less smooth and incremental.

[Polkageist]

Ah, think more creatively! There's lot of interesting weather patterns so maybe start with something cool and work backwards to figure out how it might work if necessary.

How about a literal Tornado Alley?
On this planet there exists an area or areas that are affected by daily (more or less) tornadoes that are confined to a narrow strip of land, perhaps a valley or canyon. Much like old faithful here on earth, these tornadoes occur with regularity and predictability, and can safely be observed from the edges of their domain.

[dcarson]

Mars gets global dust storms.

[Flyndaran]

I wonder if near permanent storms like Jupiter's big eye could exist on habitable planets.

Also tidally locked planets could have a zone of earth like temperatures. Now that would create interesting permanent weather patterns.

[Wraithe]

Originally Posted by Sindri

What interesting weather or climate variations from Earth normal could exist on a habitable exoplanet in a hard science fiction game?

I strongly suggest Larry Niven for weird habitable and yet hard-science worlds.

Apart from the aforementioned Canyon, you have:

Jinx: Can't even describe adequately here in the forum, suffice to say- Only habitable in two bands to the "north" and "south" of the equator, and not the polar regions (They're in 'vacuum'). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinx_(Known_Space)

Plateau - Venus-like, with a plateau (called Mount Lookitthat), half the size of California, rising high enough out of the dense atmosphere to be habitable.

We Made It - The planet's axis is pointed along the plane of its ecliptic (like Uranus), creating ferocious winds on the order of 500 mph (800 km/h) during half of the planet's year, forcing the people to live underground.

Those are just the high points for weather. Definitely check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Known_Space and look under "Locations".