Snow on the Hallelujah Mountains?

[Ashen Key]

This struck me last night, while I was watching a David Attenborough documentry, and now it's really bothering me.

High altitude generally equals snow (not matter the latitude), and no one can argue that the Hallelujah Mountains are pretty high up. But it's warm enough that Trudy runs around in a singlet half the time, and Jake tends to wear just those t-shirts.

Anyone have idea why the mountains aren't covered in snow, even during the night?

[SnowRider]

Maybe the mountains really are not as high in terms of elevation in comparison to Earth mountains.

Or, there may be snow only on the very tops of the mountains and even then, perhaps it is only seasonal, i.e., snow that falls only during certain times of the year.

And, it it quite possible that the mountains are located in the Pandoran tropics and/or simply aren't high enough to get snow.

[Banefull]

Snow does not probrably exist on the mountains for a combination of reasons. First off, since this is a jungle, the air is full of moisture and water retains heat very well and releases it slowly, keeping the temperature rather constant (even at night). Next, a lot of foilage grows on the floating rocks which helps to absorb even more heat. Finally the atmosphere is very thick with clouds preventing a lot of heat from radiating into back into space. In the the scene where the valkyrie shuttle enters orbit we can clearly see some very very thick cloud formations blanketing the entire atmosphere as far as the eye can see. We also see lots of mist and cloud cover around the mountains themselves (remember Norm's comment that they cannot see anything after going VFR). All this = no snow.

Edit: Something that occurred to me was that Pandora orbits a giant gas giant. If I remember correctly, it enters into a dark phase for quite a while as it passes through the shadow of Polyphemus. Perhaps in the middle of this period we could see snow and ice formations at higher elevations. All depends on how well the environment can retain heat. Would be an interesting thign to know. I could easily imagine that during this time all the Ikrans would migrate away from their nests at the top of these mountains to the jungle canopy.

[Ashen Key]

Snow does not probrably exist on the mountains for a combination of reasons. First off, since this is a jungle, the air is full of moisture and water retains heat very well and releases it slowly, keeping the temperature rather constant (even at night). Next, a lot of foilage grows on the floating rocks which helps to absorb even more heat. Finally the atmosphere is very thick with clouds preventing a lot of heat from radiating into back into space. In the the scene where the valkyrie shuttle enters orbit we can clearly see some very very thick cloud formations blanketing the entire atmosphere as far as the eye can see. We also see lots of mist and cloud cover around the mountains themselves (remember Norm's comment that they cannot see anything after going VFR). All this = no snow.

Edit: Something that occurred to me was that Pandora orbits a giant gas giant. If I remember correctly, it enters into a dark phase for quite a while as it passes through the shadow of Polyphemus. Perhaps in the middle of this period we could see snow and ice formations at higher elevations. All depends on how well the environment can retain heat. Would be an interesting thign to know. I could easily imagine that during this time all the Ikrans would migrate away from their nests at the top of these mountains to the jungle canopy.

*beams* Awesome, that all makes sense. It was really, really bothering me, and I role-play Trudy, and I figured that she'd probably KNOW and I was going 'but, but, I don't know, what if it comes up in my game D:'

(and now I'm really tempted to play around with the Hallelujah Mountains sometimes getting snow in what passes as 'winter')

Thanks for lending your brain, this all makes sense.

[Wanderlust]

Pandora is a different world, it has a much stronger greenhouse than earth does due to the extra Co2 and other elements. Its probably above freezing at the highest peaks.

[Pandora's Boxed?]

This struck me last night, while I was watching a David Attenborough documentry, and now it's really bothering me.

High altitude generally equals snow (not matter the latitude), and no one can argue that the Hallelujah Mountains are pretty high up. But it's warm enough that Trudy runs around in a singlet half the time, and Jake tends to wear just those t-shirts.

Anyone have idea why the mountains aren't covered in snow, even during the night?

They're nowhere near high enough. Snow on mountains in tropical latitudes doesn't happen unless it's at high altitude. They're clearly no more than a thousand feet or so high.