Sitnikov in Westeros: How Celestial Mechanics finally explains why winter is coming in Game of Thrones

Abstract

"Winter is coming". As far as meteorological predictions go, the words of House Stark are both trivial and not very helpful for a scientific analysis to explain the chaotic sequence of the seasons in the world of "Game of Thrones". The natives of Westeros have failed to develop a feasible model to understand and predict the coming and duration of their winters. And although the scientists of Earth have brought forth many different mechanisms to explain the seasons, all of them are found wanting (at least by us). Nobody seems to have discovered the one and only true and working mechanism to explain the coming and going of winters on Westeros and thus it is up to us to introduce the world to the might of the often ignored Sitnikov problem. That very special configuration of two stars and one planet is ideally suited to explain everything that needs to be explained and uncover the real reason for the coming of winter.