My world building project needs realism

[Veldehar]

Off the top of my head, first the current question:

The currents on the east of Arya and Katar are a place to look at. Your gyre here sweeps out and around the island east of Arya and then continues east. It could track around the west side and east side of that island and continue north to form a single gyre that cools near the arctic and sweeps back south on the west coasts of Sakura and Ystar. Now what you have could be correct, there is nothing impossible about it (it might even be likely) from the limited knowledge of the world climate, but the main thing is to be aware of the possibility of going the way I mentioned for climate choices. The more I look at your map, the less problem I see with how it now sits. The importance here is one of the major tenets of climate, warm waters evaporate and create moisture/rain faster and easier than cold current waters. The west coasts tend to be cooler and east coasts tend to be warmer, although this is naturally mitigated by many factors. Winds blowing onshore from a cold current will carry less moisture than those blowing in from a warm current, a good thing to think about all over the world.

Note: I'd be curious to see your tropics of capricorn and cancer put down for better reference of that zone.

Now onto your climates. You seem to have a lot of rain shadows unaccounted for. For instance, Tarantia. There is a mountain chain there that begs for something. At that latitude most likely your major storm systems are moving west to east with the jet stream. We've no real clue of the terrain heading across the bulk of the continent, so all is good until you hit those mountains. At this point any moisture left in the air is going to dump, creating a rain shadow on the east coast. Now this could be mitigated by tropical storms coming up from the equator (like the east coast of the US which pulls moisture from these tropical cells as well as the warm coastal waters) except that unlike the eastern US you have Naila down there that would likely inhibit tropical storms reaching that rain shadow zone. More likely any tropical storms would track to the southern coast of Tarantia (possible hurricane zone, although Ningya could deflect a little of that energy) and drive moisture laden air into the middle of the continent, as occurs in the middle of the US. In the midwest rainy years are often brought on by tropical moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and not simply brought in on the jet stream.

Both Fellion and Gaya also seem to have mountains begging for rain shadows. Again, these look like they would fall into a west to east storm track with the jet stream, so you are looking at rain shadows on the lee (east) side of those mountains. And the little brown coastal area of Fellion would likely flip-flop with the green to the west, as you have a warm current on its east coast. And that rain shadow could be mitigated by tropical moistures coming down from the equator also, so the rain shadow wouldn't necessarily be desert.

North of the mountains on Sakura would be damned cold and dry. The area of water and land surrounded by Tarantia, Arya, Katar and Naila would be interesting.

One of the most interesting deserts to look at is the Atacama, which sits on the coast in Chile where fog is the main moisture it gets, and it is a great example of cold currents messing with things.

I could probably prattle on much longer but that will do for now, LOL.

[loogie]

wow. Those currents are quite nice!

From what of I understood from Veldehar I agree.. he seems to have thought it out much more in detail than I have... Thats a good portion of work done! Make sure you keep even the most draft of your maps for they can come in handy in the future if any questions arise.. usually keeping the most refined of each type of data is the best.. Another tough thing but I feel can be worthwhile is geological history, tectonic's is great, but things like earthquakes, mountain building.. glacier advancement and receeding.. general land types can be a great thing.. really good for deciding things like vegitation.. for instance, knowing the location of something like the candian shield vs the great lakes st lawrence lowlands can pretty much define the soil context of the area... canadian shield will tend to have bedrock very close to the surface, if not ON the surface, so farming (and thus much vegitation) is hard to grow... pines grow very well on it, which is one of the reasons the forests are so huge in northern canada... the other reason is the weakness of the land for farming, so cities (especially before trains and such) had a hard time forming... I did work for a conservancy in Peterborough ontario, the beginning of the shield, and it was crazy how many abandoned villages were in the area, specifically once the railway changed locations these cities lost their supply lines, and therefore people had to leave... in a fantasy realm... it would be quite hard to keep them supplied...

Glacial flows (ice ages) can create some interesting landmasses, such as deposits (lines of debris left where the glacier stops, and retreats...), drumlins, lakes and the like...

It all depends on how detailed you wish to get, and it's usually best to start generic and get more detailed as you need it.. right now your already seeming to be farther on than pretty much any of the world's I've built.. and I really like how they're shaping up.. the contents all look quite interesting, and seeing them come together with climates makes em look even more exciting!

[Veldehar]

Another good one is Australia. If I remember correctly, and my memory isn't always great, at least some of Australia would be a lot greener if not for the nutrient poor soil. That isn't the bigger cause of course, that would be that Australia has moved its way into a subtropic high pressure zone over the last 45 million years or so. The fact that Australia is also near the center of its tectonic plate heavily influences the lack of fertility as it doesn't have the typical seismic activity of other land masses, and volcanos are good at building soil fertility. Areas of high volcanic history will have very fertile soils.

Another important note with zones is that great soil still won't grow worth a hoot without rain, but all the rain in the world for poor soil will do no good, and simply cause massive erosion.

All and all with fantasy climates my outlook is to understand all the rules I can so that when I break them I know it and why. But in the end, climate is simply so vast and complex that if you need a region to be a certain way, you can probably justify it with minimal magic so long as you keep things making sense on a broad scale.

[Hyrrow]

Thanks, here are the lines you wanted to see, like capricorn, approximately. Sometimes things seem to get technical for me on this site, English is not my first language, but I'm learning!

cartographyx.jpeg

In the mean time I'm adjusting the climate things with the info you guys gave me!

[Veldehar]

I've read plenty of posts too technical for me and English is my first language, LOL.

A fun thing with tropical weather patterns is to look at the ITCZ, and I just stumbled across the website found below. But basically, where the NTCZ goes rani will follow its low pressure system (jungles of the Congo) and no rain north and south in the high pressure (the Sahara desert). The more land mass being warmed by the sun, the more the ITCZ will rise north and south seasonally, so Asia really brings the ITCZ north.

http://people.cas.sc.edu/carbone/mod...tcz/index.html

[Hyrrow]

cartography2.jpeg

I added some desert according to the comments giving. In fact I did that yesterday. LOL.

And today I've been redoing rivers and names for the area around that inner sea. I'm going to the movies now, to watch John Carter. But when I get back I hope to continue the inner sea map. Also I'll look over all the posts to see if I forgot anything or didn't understand. I love this place!!!

[silverhead]

This is coming along nicely. I've read through all the thread and you're getting heaps of good advice. I'm eager to see what you come up with when all the climate is ready :-)

[Veldehar]

Looking good, but remember that the long southern coast of Tarantia would probably get a lot of tropical moisture and Azuria's mountains could enlarge that desert... but those are coulds, not have to bes. LOL. Looking forward to seeing more.

[Hyrrow]

Thanks so much!!! I gave the southern coast of Tarantia more subtropical forest and enlarged Azuria's desert. Thanks for pointing that out. I've been tinkering with the map of that inner sea, so that's probably the next thing I'll post. But I'm looking at everything, I'll need to correct the tectonic plates too. :-)

[Hyrrow]

Does this make sense for the inner sea area, for the heights and rivers basics? I know the map is very dirty, but I'd like to get it right first, then fix details and beauty.
cartography5.jpeg