In Principio

[Corvus Marinus]

Thanks to Pixie's tutorial, I've done more advanced temperature calculations. Climate zones coming up next.

Great Map temperature January (750x379).jpg
January

Great Map temperature July (750x379).jpg
July

[Pixie]

Looks pretty realistic / plausible. And now you're one step away from finding out the climates zones...

And btw, good look with Georgia, I hear it's a great place for trekking in the mountains (never been around, though).

[Corvus Marinus]

Yeah, my wife and I are pretty excited about getting to go to Georgia. My wife has never been outside of the USA (except Mexico), and Georgia is a place I've wanted to go for a while. As long as the political situation stays stable, with Russia next door....

...Somehow I find time to do this.
Great Map climate zones (1250x631).jpg

Still some visual cleanup to do and adjustments to make, but the first draft is done. I went through Pixie's whole tutorial for adding the climate zones. I ended up with a decent amount of blank space near the middle and extremities, which I filled in best I could using various websites discussing the Köppen scheme. I ended up using Dwc, which Pixie merged into Dfc/Dsc.

I'm still a little unsure about that region, right about the north center of the map, where you have close vertical stripes of taiga, steppe, and savannah. That was a blank area, getting moderate rain in the winter by the mountains and moderate rain in the summer on the coast. Summers are mild, winters very cold. I made a guess, but I'm not confident about it.

I'm also wondering if I ought to expand the size of my west coast deserts.... I may have made my dry areas too small in my original precipitation map.

EDIT: The extent of the tundra has me wondering, too. However, I am working with a supercontinent, in which dramatic extremes are to be expected. I haven't yet tried to factor in the potential for a megamonsoon, which many experts think were a staple on supercontinents due to extraordinary land-ocean pressure differences.

[Pixie]

Oh wow, it does look realistic/plausible and I'm sure you can be glad with your results.

So, basically, there are three different places for productive agriculture / civilization spawn - the northwestern coast, the south of the pangaea and the southern coasts of the large eastern island-continent. Traveling along that long north-south sea between two distant cultures would be quite a feat and surely the source of tales, including contact with pastoral cultures from the savanna and inland highland cultures.

Corvus, your climate map is already making the whole thing more "alive".

As for your issues:
- If you want to make the supercontinent effect stronger, all you need to do is enlarge the high pressure / low pressure centers on it when working on the rain pattern. Also, you can adjust the temperature map to increase the influence of some factors (I'm thinking inland factor, mainly).
- Unless your map is in a projection that is "equal area", that extent of tundra isn't really too much, so I wouldn't worry about it - a massive continent will have very large areas with similar climates.

[Azélor]

1-One of my biggest concern was the extend of the tundra. When I look at Earth, tundra usually stick close to the sea. By definition, the climate is less extreme than some of the D climates because it's close to the sea. In the tundra, Winter is not as cold but summer is also cooler and shorter. Another factor to consider is that you have a very high pressure system that is trapping all the cold air over the land in winter. It could be even worse than Siberia.
Most of the inland tundra could become Dfd,Dwd or Dsd if the altitude is high enough. I doubt that you should extend the EF area because the summer season could be too hot for this. Yeah 5 degree is too hot.

2- since we are dealing with a large continent, larger than Asia correct? You should move the ITCZ and the subtropical high pressure to the north in the summer. It would stay the same in winter.

3-The other thing to take into consideration as you said is the possible mega monsoon effect triggered by the size of the continent. How far could water travel inland before falling? More moisture will be drawn fro the sea but where does it fall? Is it evenly dispersed or there is a great contrast between the coast and the land ? I'm not really sure.

4-Correct me if I misunderstood your map but your are making mountains drier? It's true only if you are in the rain shadow, otherwise it's sometimes the opposite.


Observations on particular climate:

BSk: rarely form that close to the water unless mountains shield it from the temperance of the sea. They are also more common with higher elevations.

Csa/Csb: make sure you make them stick to the sea, some go too far inland in the west part. These climate's temperature have little variation over the course of the year because the are usually close to a body of water.

Cfa/Cwa: if you decide to increase the monsoon effect, these climates could cover much more land. Cfa more along the coasts and Cwa more inland.

Cwc: As I told Pixie, this is a relatively cold climate

• Average temperature of the 3 coldest months between 0 °C and 18 °C
• Average temperature of the 3 hottest months between 10°C and 22 °C
• No more than 3 months with average temperature > 10 °C

I think a place like these along the coast is the south should have a hotter climate than this

Cfb: I'm not sure this climate could go that far in the north. I think that most of it should become Cfc instead.

That being said, I should add that most of my observations are based on generalizations but also by trying to take in consideration your wind directions and temperatures. What I said could still be wrong if I missed something.

[Corvus Marinus]

Pixie:

I'm glad the creative potential of this invented world excites someone else besides me!

Azelor:

1. Okay. Yeah, the dramatic difference in tundra extent between this map and Asia did have me wondering. I haven't worked myself around to cleaning up the northern hemisphere yet, but when I do, I'll take a closer look with your observations into account.

2. If you are referring to the precipitation/pressure maps in #17, I have already updated those to reflect more ITCZ movement, on Pixie's recommendation.

3. I'll continue to consider this.

4. This is something I will correct as I move around the map in more detail.

BSk: It did turn out quite prevalent on east coasts; my precipitation maps showed these areas as low precipitation year-round. I'm not sure how to correct this.

Csa/Csb, Cfa/Cwa: Noted.

Cwc: I've already changed most of the Cwc in the south to Dwa. Based on the document you posted recently, it seemed more suitable.

Cfb: I may have estimated too much warmth from the currents and ocean winds. I'll make the adjustment.

Thanks for the recommendations.

By the way--is it possible to end up with zones of Dsa/Dsb and Dwa/Dwb right next to each other? I don't see it anywhere on the Earth map, but I while editing the southern hemisphere I ended up with a zone that looks a lot like it. According to my precipitation maps, the northern areas get a bit of rain blown inland from the ocean during the winter but not summer, and vice versa immediately to the south. I know I must have something wrong somewhere, but I'm confused now.

[Azélor]

I don't know where it's located on your map but they don't go well together because it imply a radical change in the precipitation pattern on a small area. You woulds need something to separate them like a mountains range maybe. It could be possible.

[Corvus Marinus]

Great Map climate zones (1250x631) (2).jpg
Draft 2. Still some work to be done, especially on the mountains, but I think I'm starting to get a feel for what ought to go where. I realized that the east coasts should receive more summer precipitation due to low continental pressure in the summer. I also extended the western deserts substantially to merge the coastal deserts with the surely bone-dry interior.

Improved?

[Pixie]

Yes, improved, I say.

What's your next step/stage?

[Azélor]

I would say that it's better but the tundra area is still problematic. The thing is, I expect that the climates should be more extreme than what is shown on your temperature map (in the north). Possibly hotter in summer and definitely colder in the winter. If the continentality (far from the ocean) is as strong as in Siberia, the temperatures range is similar.

To make a better use of the Koppen classification, I would recommend that you use my modified version of the Trewartha thermal scale. I modified it a little in order to match with the Koppen classification. With 10 categories.

Severely hot: 35 °C or more
Very hot: 28 to 35 °C
Hot: 22 to 28 °C
Warm: 18 to 22 °C
Mild: 10 to 18 °C
Cool: 0 to 10 °C
Cold: −10 to 0 °C
Very cold: −25 to −10 °C
Severely cold: −38 to −25 °C
Deadly cold: −38 °C or below