Hearted Youtube comments on Casual Earth (@casualearth-dandavis) channel.

  1. Because there is so little rainfall on these islands, there's little run-off and underwater visibility is superb. Great for divers and snorkelers. Also, hurricanes are extremely rare here. That, plus the clear skies and strong winds, make it a great place to visit during the summer.
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  2. I did my senior thesis in college on this exact topic several years ago. This video almost feels like you read my notes from my defense giving this presentation. The biggest takeaway from my research was what you briefly touched on with their dormancy behaviors. In almost every case I could find, they continued to bask as temperatures approached freezing, to the point that many would develop moderate to severe respiratory infections in temperatures around 30F-45F, even if they did survive a short cold spell. These respiratory infections were often fatal even when treated (cannot remember the source, but I believe it was a smaller institute conducting research near Jacksonville, FL). Gopher tortoise burrows, like you explained, would be one of their only refuges if they were to make it to the panhandle due to how deep they go, and those are becoming scarcer by the year. If they were to make it into the limestone caves that you start to see in the Appalachian Mountain Range, they would have a chance in the foothills of the southern range, providing better dormancy behaviors were selected for. I concluded they would likely not expand much farther than the ranges of the American crocodile without further selective pressures, and at most make it as far north as mangrove forests in the relatively near future with a bit of luck on their side. Props to the video! Really took me back and many of these studies were not around when I did mine. Super cool to see more about it six years later.
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  3. This was all so very interesting. Thank you for enlightening us about this region of the world, culturally, historically, and geographically. You taught me things I did not know, which is saying something given that I was born in Venezuela and lived in Valencia, a city a few miles inland along the central coast of the country. This area is quite tropical with lots of rain. However, as you stated in the video the coastal areas to the west and further east of the country are quite dry. As a child I traveled several times to Isla Margarita and I remember the arid landscapes, the cacti. I had no idea that there existed a tiny white tailed deer, so I'm glad to know that. Thank you. Our family also traveled to Coro, just south of the Peninsula de Paraguana, in the state of Falcon, where there was a desert with high golden sand dunes. Another hot and very dry region of the country. I am curious what drew you to want to make a video about this particular region of South America? You definitely did it justice.
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  4. As a person who lives in Central Somalia 🇸🇴 i always used to ask myself why my country is hot desert while the neighbouring countries aren't. Thanks for explaining this important topic.
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  5. I was born in Rasht and people outside my country are always baffled when I describe my region's climate :)
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  6. I'm going to get "not a bad deal for a humble seal" tattooed on my forehead.
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  7. Dude this was EXACTLY what I was looking for. I was just so confused on what could cause the clouds to go south so consistently to make that much raid fall/such a rain shadow. The winds totally made sense and I have always wondered about those parts of Turkey and now it makes even more sense. I love micro climates they are so interesting. I live in a very special/particular place, Eureka California. It's basically perpetually 60 degrees and cloudy. But if I dive 20 mins south it can shoot up to high 80s or 90s in the summer, but once you come back and hit a certain spot, it's all cloud cover or foggy/misty. There's not a whole lot of habitable area for urbanization around us, it's all mountains. It's the one flat place on the coast. The whole area is basically a big alluvial flat from river run off over thousands of years so it's very swampy already and with the mountains right behind us, the clouds sit here or rain on their way up. Part of the bay is just slightly above sea level that it goes bare when the tide is out. Coming from L.A and the California Central Valley where it was basically the same always HOT, and then HOT days and COLD nights in the winter.. it was so facinating the difference. It made me much more curious of all the different types of climates and geological things that can cause different ones to exist that defy the norm. Thanks so much for this and I hope you have others/make more!
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  8. Great video - every time you release I'm waiting for it to blow up, the production quality and content can't go under the radar forever. Even if it doesn't happen I'm very happy you make these great, entertaining and informative videos unlike any others I've really come across, and your interest and passion for this niche of topics (geography, meterology, biology) really shines through.
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  9. I am studying seasonal rainfall in this region for my PhD and this video encapsulates basically every way in which this region is so dry. Similar to El Nino (and La Nina), the Indian Ocean undergoes a similar type of variability called the IOD (Indian ocean dipole). Occasionally, when SST (sea surface temperature) anomalies are high in the west, such that the water temperature is above average, this can (for a brief period) increase rainfall in east Africa. This typically only occurs in the 'short rains' season from October-December since positive IOD events only tend to occur following boreal summer. positive IOD events increased rainfall in east Africa in short rains 2023 and 2019, bringing flooding and a high impact on the people who live there.
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  10. I'm from Maracaibo, Venezuela. I am impressed not only by the oceanographical but by the historic accuracy of this video, as well. By the way, my grandmother, Felicia Gómez, was guaiquerí. I loved this from head to toe.
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  11. Just like my ex, she was hot, but had a very cold heart 😔
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  12. Wow, lots of advantages I never considered. The tracheid size advantage and the fog advantage were completely new to me. And the idea that poor soil favors conifers because they don't need as much nutrients for all the leaf turnover is amazing. Thanks for the video!
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  13. In some places of the neighbor state of Nuevo León you can also grow tropical plants peacefully until a random freeze wipes them out. Before the 2021 freeze there were over 110 coconut palms scattered around the city of Monterrey, after the freeze only a little more than a half survived. Some of them were in high altitudes in houses that surrounded the mountains of the city where "snow" fell which impressed me. A lot of tropical plants came back with all the amount of rain we've been getting since tropical storm Alberto. Our climate is mostly subtropical but when rain falls and the sun comes out, it feels like tropical.
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  14. Good thing I just bought this 8 ton industrial barrel of bird poop 👍
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  15. I'm from the port of Veracruz, the winter Nortes (cold northern winds) really puts a chill to your bones… it is really hard to explain to outsiders how one day you can be chilling at the beach at 30°C, then 12 hours later you’ll be facing 50mph winds and 15°C temperature drops
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  16. Love these presentations--the careful research and care for authenticity is appreciated. If there are any compelling reasons to cover the accomplishments of Alexander von Humboldt, whose work seems very much to intersect the interests of this series, I would be delighted to watch it. Having grown up near the confluence of several streams and rivers, I'm also intrigued with riparian flora and fauna. I've often wondered if they are the primary determinants of the surrounding biome's profile, or vice-versa.
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  17. Does the ability to defend oneself in more diffult to traverse landscapes high up in the mountains play a role?
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  18. A different dimension in examining highlands is their configuration. Most mountains are produced by plate tectonics which creates ranges or a linearity of the mountains. This enhances interaction with surrounding lowlands because of a narrower pattern resulting in a proximity to the lowlands. This would be the case in Guatemala or much of Latin America. The most difficult highland environment is a massif which is a block of mountains. The most famous being the Massif Central of France which funnels transportation to its sides. I live on the edge of a massif, the Olympic peninsula of Washington state. There are no interior transportation passages through the mountain block except for a few foot trails. The difficulty of travel was so great that parts of the interior were unexplored until the latter part of the 1800's. All transport routes are along the edges. A great video and thought provoking ideas. I was a Professor of Geography for 32 years so my compliment would be more meaningful than some. I hope that you can pursue more geography studies. It is a neglected subject, sadly today.
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  19. Excellent! An inspiring video. It makes me curious about other biogeographical patterns!
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  20. I visited San Francisco last July and wondered this very thing. Since it was summer and me being from the east coast, I packed a bunch of shorts and t shirts just to find out the high for that day was 62 degrees lol.
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  21. As a venezuelan that had visited many times Araya´s and Paraguaná´s peninsulas, I enyoyed very much this explanation. A visually stunning portrait of salt explotation in Araya in the 1940s can be found in Margot Benacerraf´s documentary "Araya", that certainly is worth a look
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  22. I'm a native of the island Aruba, thanks for explaining our unique ecosystem 🌵
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  23. I’m a grad student studying corals in Curaçao, and have learned that the coral reef ecosystems in the area are doing much better right now compared to other reefs in the tropics. One reason is the upwelling in the region delivering cooler water, but another is the lack of precipitation. Less rain creates less runoff from cities and agriculture that would harm the health of coral reefs. Extremely unique location. Love the video, keep up the great work!
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  24. I crossed the entire black sea coast and into Georgia, the eastern region is the same. Extremely green, I was shocked at the tea farms on the mountainsides of the black sea coast. Amazing place. I also visited southern Azerbaijan, lenkeren had as much humidity as any tropical country, probably more.
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  25. Great content. I live in Japan's Tohoku region and the prefectures facing the Sea of Japan are famous for their harsh winter. It's always a crazy experience for me, a Southeast Asian, whenever I go to Akita and see the amount of snow there.
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  26. I live in Eastern Ontario (Ottawa area) and it really floors me the way the transition to the subarctic works in Ontario. As you drive west towards the Great Lakes, you begin moving slightly north--only a couple degrees--but the landscape changes dramatically. Due to how relatively close this area is to Hudson Bay--which is fully-Arctic--you get forests of stunted jackpines and endless peat bogs as you would in the Arctic, but only a few degrees north of the Ottawa Valley,which is very much a riverine environment: lots of deciduous trees and flowering plants. Quite a few wineries in the Ottawa and St Lawrence valleys, and WOW do we grow a lot of corn here. Makes that drive up to Sudbury and beyond quite a wild trip when you think about it--not many places you can go where a mostly-westward drive will take you to the lower reaches of the Arctic.
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  27. As a Guatemalan myself, it struck me hard the intro of the video. I really, really, don't asociate civilization with lowlands. All the contrary, it's in the mountains. It was the weirdest feeling I had today, while watching a YouTube video 😅🤣
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  28. Thank you, Daniel, for an excellent presentation. I love your channel and learn so much, often diving deeper using your footnotes. Thank you for everything.
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  29. I always wondered why the West was mostly conifers and the East was mostly decidous trees, the dry summer and pacific coast fog explain the situation. When I was young I thought conifers only grew in really cold places but there parts of California that have conifer forest that are much warmer than the deciduous forests back east. California is interesting you find conifer forests on the foggy coastline but go a little bit inland and you find deciduous forests, then once you gain a few thousand feet of altitude you are back into the conifer forest. I live in Seattle now and the forest is mostly conifers but near the rivers/wetlands you can find large groves of deciduous trees. Same thing in Alaska the forest is mostly conifer but you can find some big groves of decidous trees near rivers and wetlands.
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  30. Wow, I was actually very skeptical of wasps (and their ecological usefulness) but now I appreciate them! Thanks, great content as always
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  31. Really interesting about the thermo sensitivity and basking between different species, I always wondered how alligators in Florida survive the frosts and freezes that come through the area occasionally. Do you know why the Indian subcontinent appears to be bordered by a huge flatland right before the Himalayas start? It appears almost like a shield all the way from the Bengal bay to the Arabian Sea, forming a low lying separation from the more hilly and mountainous interior and the extreme heights of the Himalayas? I would expect the terrain to slowly get more and more crumpled and elevated as we approach them rather than such a stark difference
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  32. Fascinating vid as always, as someone wondering about these topics and just observing the facts without thinking about them too hard, you explain things very clearly and I always feel I learnt more about climatology. My hometown Dalien, China is surrounded by water on three sides, but the Siberian high and its peak in January makes the coldest days almost always mid-January, though recent years early February cold snaps are extremely common and overall February is deffo way colder than December, often on par with January. As for summer, the oceanic effect gets amped up because of the monsoon, so it has a very strong seasonal lag from spring to summer, temps always peak in August. This asymmetry makes a long spring and short autumn always, and we even have a saying that 'the neck of autumn is short'. Thank you for your work, cheers!
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  33. I was born in Rasht. I have not seen my rain city for 4 years. I have been living in Germany. I love Germany but I also miss that amazing climate and people's warmth and love.
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  34. Thanks so much for this video. I have been trying to answer this exact question after doing some research on Dodoma, Tanzania. I could not undertand why this area of Africa is so arid, but now I have an explanation. Keep up the great work :-)
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  35. Quite intriguing. I enjoy the unique climate series very much, good work!
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  36. Good information. Using average temperature to predict the range of a Burmese Python is one of the most ridiculous conclusions I can think of. Duh-- average temp is an average and does not represent the coldest tolerable temps of the year. Thanks for the videos
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  37. Great video, Quality already surpasses some major geography channels!
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  38. I'm from Guatemala, and I wanted to thank you so much for including so much footage from my country! Your videos are incredible!!
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  39. thank you from turkey, it was interesting
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  40. Wow--I've lived in San Francisco for 47 years and gripe about it every July. April & October are heaven, so I should be grateful. Great to have a thorough explanation, finally. Any hot chocolate come with this video?
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  41. A miniature version of this phenomena occurs around the Great Lakes. Especially the "big three": Lake Michigan, Huron and Superior. Lower Michigan is generally warmer than Wisconsin in Winter (albeit at the price of being much cloudier and snowier than Wisconsin).
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  42. I just got back from field work studying summer permafrost changes, this video is very relatable to what I saw and had thoughts about while in the plane. You answered my questions! Well done!
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  43. FINALLY, an insiteful comment/explanation as to why and how Hudson Bay acts as a giant refrigerater in the middle of Canada, keeping the summers in far northern Quebec etc unusually cool. Probably 20 degrees F cooler on the land mass surrounding Hudson Bay then say places West along the same latitude, and that is huge. That is reflected in the tree line, no real trees that far south, 56 degrees or so. I have never hear the Bay effect really discussed or even mentioned so again congrads. Just stumbled upon you first time tonite, intelligent commentary reflected in your viewers too. I will be watching. keep up the good work.
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  44. Fantastic video - I never comment on Youtube, but I'm doing so now to help with the algorithm- you deserve to get big
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  45. Thank you on behalf of all wasps
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  46. This was great! Very well edited and a relaxing voiceover
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  47. super interesting as usual !
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  48. Wonderful video and well-done narration. Very much enjoyed. 🌍
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  49. i live on aruba for over 50 years. this answered a lot of questions i had about my island....thank you
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  50. What would you say about the yellow pines in the southeastern US that still seem to dominate in certain groves despite it bring warm and humid? Also even in the lower coves of the southern Appalachians you still have plenty of white pine mixed with eastern hemlock. What makes them so persistent amongst the forests of deciduous trees?
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