I'm creating a sailing-based culture, in which a sea lies between enormous ice sheets and people live on the rocky slopes in between. Here's a picture (in Space Engine): But I would like it to be a bit more realistic than "the Mediterranean, but cold." The tops of those ice sheets are over nine kilometers above sea level. Even the hills in the foreground would be treated as large mountains on Earth. So I don't think there's any real-life analogue to use for research. What would the weather be like, assuming there was a normal diurnal cycle? I'd imagine that glaciers would be ubiquitous - is that true? If so, what sort of glaciers would there be and how would they behave? This world doesn't have any seasons, btw. I really want this to work the first time, I need my world to be consistent and don't want to have to go back later to revise. Also, are there any recorded examples of people living on ice sheets (like, in valleys)?
The Iranians lived on steep slopes? I didn't know that. Clearly life adapts to many conditions and humans are the best adaptors on the planet. I see nothing wrong with your premise. Have you looked at cultures and weather around the Arctic?
It's a pretty mountainous country. There's also Afghanistan and Tibet. Yeah, but there isn't anything comparable to living under the shadow of a continental ice sheet (much less building a civilization there).
Technological level and location would matter. If it's a world within a new star system as well. If there is a sun, but the planet doesn't rotate, that would be interesting. Maybe gravity was artificially introduced through technology (whether current or ancient) or by magical means. If the planet doesn't rotate, you would have to factor in the darkness, or an alternative form of light, whether by refraction or alternative. If it's an earth based ecosystem, located near one of the poles, research weather in a similar area. Figure out the height of the ice-shelves, and deem whether that would interfere with clouds and wind?
My ice sheets are higher than most clouds are, and the weather is probably different at the poles anyway. I don't want a dissertation, just for someone who knows something about the subject to weigh in.
So essentially the ice sheets block wind and trap warmth. Based on the temperature, sounds similar to a tundra climate, minus the wind. North Pole is summer is around the temperature range you're looking for I believe.
Not very often. Essentially, think of a desert, the air dry, but it's cold and you're surrounded by water. Hell even on a thick ice shelf there would probably be pools of water. The rate of evaporation in this type of climate is very low.
What about avalanches? There aren't any seasons in this world, but even very rare avalanches would be catastrophic.
Couple of problems from an astrophysical point of view. First off: a world without seasons is incredibly unlikely. In order to have no seasons, the planet's orbit would have to be perfectly circular, which is mathematically unstable. Such a perfectly circular orbit would be possible for only short periods of time (astronomical terms - so few hundred thousand years, maybe a million.) The spinning of the planet creates something called tidal acceleration, which will cause the planet to move. And if there are other planets in the system, they would also disturb such a delicate orbit. The tops of the ice shelves would be largely flat, snowfall would fill in low areas first. This large flat area will allow some crazy winds to pick up, they would likely come from the ocean. The ocean is dark and absorbs sunlight, which warms the air above it. The ice reflects most energy that touches it back into space so the air above it is frigid and dry. So you'll have constantly inward winds, which would feed snowfall. @Arcadeus is actually incorrect, evaporation would happen at a ridiculous pace. The air above the ice sheet would be so dry and moving so fast, that any liquid on the surface would immediately evaporate. You would almost never get pools of water, almost all water loss would be sublimation (turning directly from ice to vapor,) not melting.
Well, actually my world does not exist in a recognizable universe. I haven't decided if I'm going to make it flat, even. Hmm, so what do you imagine living beside the ice sheets would be like?
Oh, well if our universe is not the setting, you can have whatever weather ou want anyway. There is a great documentary by BBC (I think, maybe Discovery?) called Human Planet and I know there was an episode about life in the arctic. I seem to remember that they hunted huge animals and fed off of them for a while. Whales, basking sharks, things like that.
