So I was looking at google maps while working because of course I was. I’m not even kidding when I say that I was wondering if there’s some nice place far enough south to experience 18+ hours of sunlight and nice weather in the southern summer as we do here in the northern summer in Estonia. But when I took a look, the closest thing would be the southernmost tip of Chile, which apparently is pretty cold in the (southern hemisphere) summer. And just a few more degrees south, we have Antarctica. Here, you go a few more degrees north and you just get Finland.
I was wondering what the reasoning is - is it something inherent to the Earth’s orbit around the sun, or is it due to the shapes of the continents, the ocean currents, etc?
Edit: Many great answers here. Thank you!
Bit of an urban legend apparently. Despite the gulf stream transporting warm water it is nowhere near enough to explain the difference. Richard Seager et al quantitatively put its contribution at around 30% of the difference. The bulk cause is actually air currents and the different topography between Europe and N America. In other words, if there were no gulf stream the ‘warm Europe’ phenomena would still be very much noticeable.
Sources:
https://www.academia.edu/75356473/Is_the_Gulf_Stream_responsible_for_Europes_mild_winters (free)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/27858802?read-now=1 (free after registration)
Discussion here: https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/43/why-is-europe-warmer-than-north-america-at-similar-latitudes
Interesting, I’ll look into this.