In the half‑light of a study desk, beside well‑worn pages of mythical maps and printed legends of great quests, there is a quiet tension between the imagined and the observable. We hold in our hands stories born of myth and magic—of hobbits who tend quiet gardens in the Shire, and of knights and banners beneath the long, cold watchfulness of The Wall. And yet, when the sun crests an unseen horizon and turns our thoughts outward, even these worlds invite a gaze shaped by physics, patterns, and the familiar laws that govern rain, wind, and distant suns.
It is this curious intersection—between the imaginative landscapes of fantasy and the hard‑won methods of Earth’s climate scientists—that has drawn researchers to ask: Do Middle‑earth and Westeros make sense under the careful calculus of climate models? What at first might seem like playful speculation turns out to be an earnest application of scientific tools to places that do not, in truth, exist on any globe we might orbit.
At the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, climate researcher Dan Lunt turned a well‑known example of such curiosity into a concrete exercise in modelling. Using the same type of complex computer program employed to simulate our planet’s future climate, Lunt and colleagues mapped the contours of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle‑earth onto a spherical grid and ran a simulation lasting decades in computer time. They found that “the Shire,” Tolkien’s peaceful homeland, would likely enjoy a climate much like parts of western Europe—mild, green, and congenial to its halfling inhabitants—while the near‑desert heat and aridity of Mordor, scorched by legend and volcanic fire, mirrored climates around Los Angeles or western Texas. The rains that fall on the Misty Mountains in Tolkien’s tales also have a physical explanation in prevailing westerlies that condense and shed moisture on windward slopes. This blended storytelling with science, not merely for whimsy but to illustrate the power of models grounded in real physics.
Similarly, scientists have turned their attention to Westeros, the land of Game of Thrones. Here, the seasons themselves are part of the story: summers that linger for years and winters that seem to stretch into memories of ice. Researchers adapted sophisticated climate models to simulate the atmospheric conditions on this imagined world, with results that resonate subtly with the weather described in the books and the series. Winter beyond The Wall, where the ancient guardians stand, was climatically likened to the frigid landscapes of Lapland, while the temperate summers of other regions matched conditions more akin to parts of North America or East Asia. These simulations even offered explanations — however playful — for the prevailing winds that might shape dragon flights or trading routes across wide seas.
What distinguishes these fictional investigations is not their fidelity to magical detail but the way they demonstrate the flexibility of climate models. At their core, these models are built on the same laws of fluid movement, radiation, and thermodynamics that shape Earth’s own climate. They have proved capable of reconstructing paleoclimates of long‑gone eras on our planet and projecting future climate changes; applied to imagined maps, they offer insights into how imaginary skies might behave if those worlds obeyed the same rules. In doing so, they help bridge the gap between a reader’s imagination and the physical processes that govern real weather patterns.
In some ways, these exercises shed light on something deeper than a map of rain and sun. They remind us that the wonders of fantasy worlds—so rich in tale and texture—can coexist with the curiosity that drives scientists to probe far beyond the familiar. Even in realms born of ink and imagination, there is room to wonder how wind and cloud might move, how seasons might stretch their fingers from summer warmth to winter’s chill, and how the invisible mechanics of air and sea might give shape to tales that captivate us.
Scientists have used sophisticated Earth‑based climate models to simulate the climates of fictional settings such as Tolkien’s Middle‑earth and the continents of Westeros. These exercises map temperature, rainfall and wind patterns onto imagined maps and find climates that align roughly with Earth analogues, providing both a playful and educational way to illustrate how climate models work.
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Sources
The Conversation University of Bristol research press releases Phys.org The Guardian PBS News