SOOOO assuming the heading markers we get in AC6 point to magnetic north, then the map we get in the artbook is oriented such that up = north. This is consistent with how the mission maps and (most) of the in-game environments present themselves: Watchpoint Delta is north of the Wall, is north of Grid 135, which is east of Bona Dea. Here's my rough vector map with rougher lines of latitude thrown in per an Equirectangular projection (for the sake of my sanity, and because the projection type isn't listed, and it doesn't look like a spherical texture):
(I also know a screenshot of a globe exists, and I could do some texture magic to make my own with appropriate distortions, but absent context there's no way to tell if this is the north pole of Rubicon or the sphere is just oriented that way.)
Anyway.
For reference, the 30°-45° latitudes of Earth contain most of North America, Europe, MENA, China, and Japan. It's the most populous range of latitudes based on this fun visualiser I found and some quick napkin math. Snow has been recorded in countries around 30°N/S, but it's rare, and doesn't stay long outside of the mountains. Having an ice field there, under earthlike circumstances, would be impossible.
Of course, we're not talking about earthlike circumstances! Considering that Rubicon suffered a massive climate disaster fifty years ago, one which pumped thousands if not millions of tons of dust into the air, it's not a huge leap to headcanon that Rubicon is in the midst of an extreme variation of a volcanic winter. Coral detritus reflecting sunlight triggering an feedback loop would see the planet swing hard from "hot enough to cook your lungs" to "cold enough to freeze whole oceans." Not that frozen escarpments (like Grid 086) or cold sand deserts (like Bona Dea) are impossible under normal, earthlike climate conditions, but the fact that Rubicon's ice sheets creep to at least 30°S (maybe even to the equator, depending on how generously you apply the Ice Field label) means there's something decidedly un-earthlike going on with it.
(Okay, a lot goes into making up the climate systems of a planet, from coriolis to ocean currents to mantle makeup to the stellar class of its parent body, none of which I'm prepared to get into right now. But I do know Rubicon has similar gravity and is roughly 70% water and some of the flashy briefing slideshows have 24 hour timestamps, and so I'm going to keep going on this trend of "Earth, but" until I find spicy ways to change it.)
And sure, it could just be the typically disastrous ice-albedo feedback loop making the warmest parts of the planets cool for the time being, but I would like to propose a second, worse option: that the Fires destroyed Rubicon's moon, and knocked the planet into a Uranus-like roll.
(Source: Wikipedia page on Axial Tilt)
Its geographic and magnetic poles likely wobble (well, more than ours) without the moon to stabilise it. I haven't decided it it makes the tides weaker or stronger, because tides are a complicated equation of the moon and the sun's gravity acting together, but at the very least Rubicon's tides would be slower: because Rubicon, like Uranus, would rotate which side of the planet faced the sun over the course of a year, rather than a day.
(Astronomy Magazine, 2014)
Contrary to our cold poles and warm equator, Rubicon likely experiences seasons along the poles and a permanent winter at the equator. This fits well with the ice fields being close to the equator, and Bona Dea being closer to the poles, where the temperatures can become more extreme. But I haven't finished reading all the papers about high obliquity climates yet.
my that one friend that's too woke opinion is that in a similar vein to how you almost never see fat people or women without makeup on tv you never really see anyone experiencing incontinence issues unless it's a humiliating comedic moment at their expense and that's kind of scary
like sorry to be the bearer of bad news but people piss themselves. when they're afraid. when they've experienced mental and/or physical trauma and their body needs a way to express that stress. when they've been sexually assaulted. when they get older and their muscles start to wear out from a lifetime of service. a not insignificant majority of people Will experience incontinence in their lifetimes and while there are steps you can take to manage it for your own comfort and others', there's simply no moral dimension to it whatsoever. & like i'm not saying every show and movie needs checkhov's bed wetting scene but we have seriously got to get more okay with acknowledging that somehow.
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