Are we talking about north or weather being cold? I know for many regions one translates to another but assuming they are the same thing is what "doesn't make sense". In this post, the author is talking about NORTH.
In popular culture and public consciousness, the two are equated very often.
See, for example, the latest hit show - Game of Thrones which shows a very cold, hardy North and a warm, indolent South. Now I know these specific books that the show is based on derive from the Wars of the Roses -- but have you ever a fantasy writer who put people on the Southern hemisphere of their planet and made the North warm?
I used to have a theory that you could tell where a fantasy author lived from the shape of their map. e.g. Maurice Gee's _The Halfmen of O_ --- good book, BTW --- has got the warm ocean to the north, with the snowy mountains to the south. He's a New Zealander.
Unfortunately, authors are way too aware of this now. I'm currently reading Jane Lindskold's Firekeeper quintet --- also really good --- and they're set on the west coast of a continent, called the New World, which was settled a couple of centuries ago by civilisations from across the sea to the East. She's American.
The latitude is an analogue for habitability. The ocean currents do enable agriculture and thus historic patterns of stable habitation at higher degrees of latitude on the east side of the Atlantic, compared to the west.
See, for example, the latest hit show - Game of Thrones which shows a very cold, hardy North and a warm, indolent South. Now I know these specific books that the show is based on derive from the Wars of the Roses -- but have you ever a fantasy writer who put people on the Southern hemisphere of their planet and made the North warm?