Climate
Biosphere Three has a humid continental climate. The average temperatures in the winter are around 30-40*F. The average temperature in the summer is 73° F. (Our island measures temperature in Fahrenheit!)
Graph of the Average Precipitation and Temperature for Every Month
FAQs that tourists often ask about our island: (we hand these Q's and A's out to tourists on a brochure)
How does our climate affect daily life on our island?
Housing, air conditioning/heating. Our island can get very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter. Each house will have a heating system and a cooling system installed in the kitchen (see inventions/technologies 1). The biospheres that have warm climates will have large-scale heating systems and humidifiers. All of the biospheres will have a temperature control and can be adjusted depending on what temperature the biome is during the current season. All of the biospheres will have sprinkler systems (see inventions/technologies 2) programmed to "rain" on the biosphere at certain intervals depending on how often it rains in the real-life biome. They will also all have large fans on the ceiling to create a natural wind. To see diagrams of these look at the bottom of the inventions and social change page.
What other experts should keep in mind when they are designing things
Considering that it rains often here the inventions and social change expert (me!) will have to take the rainfall into account when designing houses and other structures. They will need to be water resistant and strong to resist violent storms. The biomass group has to know our climate to be able to determine what animals and plants live on our island. I will have to tell the resources expert about our island so she can know what we can export and what we will need to import that would make sense (if we were importing goods from a place that had the exact same climate as us it would not make much sense because we could just produce it on our island!).
Important steps taken to manage greenhouse gases and toxic emissions
How we will deal with greenhouse gases: On our island we understand that everything is connected and many things can have an effect on the atmosphere. We have large forests on our island and use public transportation systems as opposed to everyone polluting as they use their own transportation. We do this in hopes that it will help to offset any emissions that may come from factories and the burning of fossil fuels (using our monorail) on our island. Below is a picture of our public bike system. (In the picture you can see cars in the background. This picture was not taken on our island it was taken in Europe!)
Severe weather response plan
We will have a radar being carefully monitored by weather specialists at all times. If severe weather is coming they will set off sirens that we have in each city. People will be instructed in what they should do in the case that a siren would go off. They are supposed to go to their nearest emergency shelter (buildings that are partially underground and constructed of concrete). They will wait there until the siren sounds a again (the weather specialists have radars in the emergency shelter so they can keep a close watch on the weather) and then they are free to proceed with caution to their regular activities. For floods each house will be equipped with The House Moat.
The Water Cycle
The water cycle on Biosphere Three