Guildworld - Climate and Biome discussion

[waldronate]

This would be the Dwarfs in Hallanicus. They keep that cheese surrounded by the kings hand chosen guards so that no one can steal it. They put it on a giant cutting board with 20 Dwarf Cheese Bearers and bring it to war with them. The smell alone can sometimes cripple an enemy army!

Perhaps with a nice piece of dwarf bread ( http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Dwarf_Bread )

[Deadshade]

Oh absolutely, it's just a guide! Trade winds blow most strongly over water so I'm only confident of their direction over water, you're totally right mountains hugely affect it. Continental wind are much more complicated, but the centre of our big equatorial continent is bound to be bone dry.

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Well trade winds blow everywhere because they are just the ground level part of the Hadley cell circulation.
Mass conservation makes sure that they blow as well above land as above ocean - the air simply must get back to equator.
The problem of this planet is that almost all equatorial areas are covered by continent(s).
Air will rise there like on Earth but the huge difference is that this air will not be water laden like on Earth because there is no water to begin with.

So the equatorial continent will not be bone dry only in the center but everywhere.
But the dryness in the lower latitudes will be only a joke compared to the regions situated around 25°-30° N and S. There will be the Mother of all deserts and Sahara and Atacama would look like lush meadows compared to what we have here.
The places which could have some humidity are the NW coasts in the N hemisphere and SW coasts in the S hemisphere in latitudes around 40°-60° where the Ferrel cell brings wet winds if there is ocean to the SW-W-NW.

If I have time, I will sketch a few temperature, humidity and Wind direction elements.
Of course it is just for the fun and scientifical accuracy because I doubt that 20 people would find it funny to just draw deserts.

[Deadshade]

OK as it is better to do today what I might not be able to do tomorrow, here is a sketch of the climate on our planet.
Tha basics are that it has a size comparable to teh Earth, not a big axe tilt and a reasonable rotation speed.
From that follows that it will have 3 atmospheric circulation cells on each hemisphere : Hadley cell, Ferrel cell and Polar cell.
Atmospheric cells are the energy engine of the planet - you must imagine a huge vertical loop where the air rises on one side, travels in high altitude, sinks on the other side and then travels again back on ground altitude.

On the left side of the map you can see the extents of the cells as well as an indication of where the air rises and where it sinks. This is important for those who would like to elaborate farther because the places where the air rises are always low pressure while where it sinks are always high pressures. Everywhere where the air rises, the adiabatic expansions leads to precipitations whose amount dépends on the humidity on ground.
The colored arrows show then the direction that the air takes ON GROUND. Indeed it is uninteresting to show the air direction in the high altitude part of the loop.

White arrows show the cold polar air in the polar cell.
Blue Arrow show the temperate more or less humid air in the Ferrel cell.
Yellow arrows show the hot dry air in the Hadley cell.

From that follow the principal climatic zones.
White : Arctic
Green : Temperate humid
Yellow : Desert
Purple : Tropical humid

It clearly shows that the central continent is horribly dry. In particular Gameprinter's and Waldronate's countries are hell on Earth. The temperatures go over 50°C during the day and below 0°C during the night. Clouds and flowing water are unknown there and when it rains upon a freaky conjunction (only possible in summer every 20 years or so) it is a few drops which mostly evaporate before they hit the ground. Imagine the planet Dune in a drier version.
I like Waldronate's intuition which made him call his country "Dry lands". His people have brought understatement to an art

Guild World Map base 00c(climate).jpg

[waldronate]

My country is so dry that a water-phobic alien race might survive there, but be unable to get much beyond that central core.

The rivers are a bit of a problem, but tall mountains would presumably scrape any moisture out of the winds and provide at least some source for them. This continent would also have a monsoon that makes the earthly ones look puny, which just might draw enough water in to keep the mountains snow-covered.

[Deadshade]

My country is so dry that a water-phobic alien race might survive there, but be unable to get much beyond that central core.

The rivers are a bit of a problem, but tall mountains would presumably scrape any moisture out of the winds and provide at least some source for them. This continent would also have a monsoon that makes the earthly ones look puny, which just might draw enough water in to keep the mountains snow-covered.

Mountains won't help you. There are no more any glaciers that could melt because if there ever were any, they have already molten. The highest peeks (above 5k) will indeed have accumulated some Eternal ice over eons. But it is just that - Eternal and it never melts.
You are right with monsoons. As the whole southern shore is approximately isolatitude at the junction of the Hadley and Ferell cell, in winter (northern winter) the ITCZ just might move South enough so that monstrous monsoons start blowing.
Especially the South eastern part and Robbie's land would probably have a strongly monsoon dominated climate.

But all that still leaves you and Gameprinter in a dry hot hell

[Tonnichiwa]

I've been meaning to ask you Deadshade, other than the desert (which is created magically by that invisible dragon so he can stay warm), how does what I did with my country fit into all of this? That white area in the top part of my country is supposed to be very nasty and cold tundra. The more yellow at the bottom near Lingon's land is supposed to be an arid area that has lots of little grasses on it but it is mostly dry, not quite desert, but certainly dry and not a lot of water. But there is enough dry yellow grasses that the furry cattle can graze on it. They are a bit more robust than your typical farm cow that you would see in France or Italy. Picture more like the kind of cattle you would see in Mongolia.

[Azélor]

I've been meaning to ask you Deadshade, other than the desert (which is created magically by that invisible dragon so he can stay warm), how does what I did with my country fit into all of this? That white area in the top part of my country is supposed to be very nasty and cold tundra. The more yellow at the bottom near Lingon's land is supposed to be an arid area that has lots of little grasses on it but it is mostly dry, not quite desert, but certainly dry and not a lot of water. But there is enough dry yellow grasses that the furry cattle can graze on it. They are a bit more robust than your typical farm cow that you would see in France or Italy. Picture more like the kind of cattle you would see in Mongolia.

I think your country is like Scandinavia.


And about the monsoon, many regions in Asia receive most (more than 80%) of their water from the monsoon. I expect it's the same with Guildworld. It makes a huge difference. With such a big landmass, the monsoon is going to be pretty strong. Yet, as you mentioned Deadshade, there is not as much water available for evaporation around the equator. But it's still pretty large in the eastern portion of the map.

[Deadshade]

I've been meaning to ask you Deadshade, other than the desert (which is created magically by that invisible dragon so he can stay warm), how does what I did with my country fit into all of this? That white area in the top part of my country is supposed to be very nasty and cold tundra. The more yellow at the bottom near Lingon's land is supposed to be an arid area that has lots of little grasses on it but it is mostly dry, not quite desert, but certainly dry and not a lot of water. But there is enough dry yellow grasses that the furry cattle can graze on it. They are a bit more robust than your typical farm cow that you would see in France or Italy. Picture more like the kind of cattle you would see in Mongolia.

Like Azelor says.
Your country would be like Finland. Arctic in the North (with tundra) and temperate but quite dry in the South. So basically everything you write is perfectly realistic and correct.
And yes, the North would be very nasty especially in winter when those icy winds start blowing from the north pole. As land is colder than water, and despite the fact that cold air has very little absolute humidity, the travel over the ocean would be enough to generate quite impressive snow blizzards.

[Tonnichiwa]

Awesome guys, thank you. I'm glad I got it right. There were a lot of un-educated guesses on my part and I just thought that the land to the north would be so cold that very few if any people would want to live there. So while there are cities, there aren't a lot of them. And I made sure that most of my mountains had snow on top of them so that it still held that very cold look to most of the country. If we were keeping each individual ocean I would have probably put ice out in the oceans but I didn't do too much with them because I knew that they would probably just be cut away anyway.

[Robulous]

Valpolicella stretches from 30S to 60S, so the central belt with it's north-facing mountain slopes is good for wine-growing, the north good for sugar growing. The southern islands are more chilly with beautiful forests and rivers like Scandinavia, suited for house parties in gorgeous furs, hot springs for drunken pool parties, and whisky to keep out the cold!