WIP - The Floating World

[Lingon]

Cool idea as the others have said! Really nice land shape too. The best bit is that you've worked out so much of the physics, though I just noticed one thing that doesn't seem right, even with magic; When the sun is rises and sinks, the equator would get the most extreme seasons, because it has the biggest variation in heat. The further away from the sun, the colder it will obviously be, but it will also be more even because the distance to the sun doesn't vary as much.

[Jalyha]

So I'm not real good at figuring this stuff out, but...

If the sun comes up *between* that eastern spit of land and the main body, and sets the same way in the west... wouldn't your "equator" or, rather, the tropical-type belt around your equator, be more... round? Like...

equator.jpg

Also... how big is your sun? (And your island?) I'm just thinking about how big the space between the bits of land must be for a sun to fit throught it

[Caenwyr]

What mechanism makes the sun go higher/lower in accordance with the seasons? ("Magic" is acceptable, I guess.)

I don't think the sun should necessarily move with the seasons. It could also have different brightnesses depending on the time of the year, a bit like a (really slowly) throbbing heart. Which is a great comparison, since the sun IS after all what keeps this world alive.

most of the land is within a few miles of an ongoing nuclear fusion reaction, so are there any problems with radiation?

That's supposing the sun was an actual star. But in a world floating in the void with massive whirlpools replenishing the draining seas, a sun could be any brilliant and radiant object. No nuclear fusion required! Za-za-zing, magic! :-D

If the sun comes up *between* that eastern spit of land and the main body, and sets the same way in the west... wouldn't your "equator" or, rather, the tropical-type belt around your equator, be more... round?

I think it'd be a little more complex than that. Temperature would vary wildly with the hours of the day. A short description of the equatorial region:

• At sunrise, the regions around that eastern "bay" would be immersed in sunlight.
• During the morning, the eastern peninsula would rapidly start cooling off again as the sun moves further and further away. At the same time the eastern mainland would slowly warm up as the sun passes over it. Keep in mind that the amount of heat received from the sun at any given moment would be less here than at the eastern coasts during sunrise (the sun was far closer to the land then), but because of the longer exposure, the land would eventually warm up more.
• During the afternoon this effect would be repeated for the western half of the mainland, while the eastern half would start cooling down again (the sun being relatively far away by now). The western coasts, until now almost entirely devoid of heat, would rapidly start warming up now, as the sun draws closer and closer
• In the evening, while the rest of the land is now really cooling off, the western coasts would receive a relatively short, very intense pulse of heat as the sun passes very close and ultimately sinks below the level of the land.

Regarding the climate of regions further away from the equator: the reasoning is basically the same, except for the fact that the temperature would gradually decline as you move further north/south. Basically you could generalize by saying that extreme regions would be the coldest. The central regions would have a rather moderate climate, being warmer during the period of time when the sun is closest (eastern regions warmer in the morning, western regions warmer in the afternoon).

Also worth noting: the distribution of mountain ranges would have a massive effect on the amount of heat a certain region receives throughout the day, and thus on the climate (since the sun never moves).

In conclusion: all the above effects would be affected by three things:

1. the fierceness of the sun as a heat source,
2. the cooldown time of the atmosphere (how fast the atmosphere loses the energy received from the sun), and
3. the seasonal variance of the sun.

Let's break up the first two first. In case of a relatively fast cooldown, you'd need a strong heat source. This would result in a high number of different temperatures, both in terms of time and latitude. In case of a slow cooldown, however, you wouldn't need that strong a sun, and the chronic and latitudinal variation of temperatures would be relatively minor. Snow and ice would appear only at the fringes of the continent.

Also... how big is your sun? (And your island?) I'm just thinking about how big the space between the bits of land must be for a sun to fit throught it

I don't think we should think of the "sun" as an actual star. Any light and heat source would do, really. The sun of this world could very well be infinitesimally small. A singular point of collossal energy.

[Jalyha]

I can buy that I was thinking of a big old ... y'know, sun... But if it's really little, I can go with that

[rdanhenry]

The temperature of the water coming in through the maelstrom (or other source points) is also going to have an effect. Normally, water has a moderating effect on temperature, but when you're porting in magical water streams from wherever, you can use that to add an independent cooling or heating effect. By placing warm or cold currents from water input points, at least the coastal regions can be pretty much made to be whatever is desired. If the underside of the world continues to receive heat during the "night", then that may have an influence as well. If it gets enough warming from underneath at night, you need less heat during the day to keep things warm and thus less extreme temperatures in the daily cycle.