WIP- unnamed fantasy world

[ascanius]

Ok Pixie I took a look at your maps and after studying them a bit these are the things I noticed. One you push the polar fronts much further south/north than I did. With the mountain rainfall it looks like you included the entire mountain range and let it taper off the further from the coast it became. Looking back I can see this make much more sense than what I had done. However in some areas I noticed that you let the winds push over mountain ranges or you placed the pressure centers east more than I did. For instance in January northern hemisphere left continent on the southern portion of the north east peninsula you have it as offshore winds. I have it as onshore winds, mostly I figure the mountains to the west would block the southern winds. The one other thing I noticed that with the screen effect also on the base layer some spots that were subject to the polar front or other influences would get cut out because on the base rain layer I have them listed as dry. On yours I noticed it looks like you did something different with the base rain layer or you went back and included them to a limited extent

Looking at the temp maps I think differences are occurring due to different guesses about elevation and different rain maps.

I think one of the things that shaped the differences we are seeing is different interpretations of atmospheric maps and the dominant winds. That being said the one thing I found difficult was determining the dry continental interiors and where they should extend to. That seems to be the biggest challenge is to figure out to what extent each variable affects things. For instance I tried to have the north easterlies and south westerlies affect rain patterns to a greater extent than the other directions.

I forgot to post this earlier but I did an updated version of the rain and temp maps and they are below. I did these before you posted your version.

January.
Rain january 1.4.jpg
Temp January 1.4.jpg

July
Rains July 1.4.jpg
Temp july 1.4.jpg

Edit: Note I forgot the polar front in the southern hemisphere in the January rain map
Edit: Also thanks for putting in the time to do this Pixie, it's helping me see things I didn't think about before and also that I might need to adjust the extent to which variables affect things.

[Pixie]

Oh, I do like how our "attempts" match almost exactly in some places. That means some of the stuff must be right and my directions are actually followable!

Indeed, like you said, the whole system is very dependent on the placement of the atmospheric conditions - intertropical zone, polar fronts, oceanic high pressures - that's the part about climate that is a) a well educated guess, b) a purely uninformed guess or c) a genuine guess from an amateur who tries his best.
Specially when it comes to rain pattern, these guesses will have a huge effect. Still, I can't think of something we can do to prevent that variability.... (maybe do like seven different takes at it over a week, in separate days, or ask a number of people to to independent guesses and then take an average of guesses, but that's way too geekish for me!)

As for your map, I don't understand what you mean by this:
"The one other thing I noticed that with the screen effect also on the base layer some spots that were subject to the polar front or other influences would get cut out because on the base rain layer I have them listed as dry"

As your rain pattern map also shows an unexpected color in some places, could it be that one of the layers isn't properly set to screen? Also, I never allow for a 2-levels drop either on a rain pattern map or on a mean temperature map - if need be I add a small strip of the intermediate level in the end of the process
Your sentence, I really don't understand what you mean.

[ascanius]

Well it's been a few months. I had some time and thought about getting back into this. Figured to work with the heightmap. this is what I have so far. I left the plate tectonics pretty much as they were with a modification on the east ocean of the Northern continient.

I did a bunch of different test and the following are the results I like the most.

height NW.jpg

In this I'm thinking the mountains are to big/ take up too much area.

height SW.jpg

heightmap 01.jpg

any thoughts?

Hope everyone had a good holidays, pixie, groovey, azelor, akubra hey.

[ascanius]

Ok here is a quick update, still working on heightmap but focusing on the northwestern continent. Hopefully someone will give me some feedback.

height NW.jpg

My thoughts are.
need to lower the northwestern coastal mountains on the penisula due to them being much older.
the mountains on the penisula along with those on the three islands in the inner sea look too... busy? I think I need to tone them down/reduce their sprawling nature along with the swirling.
I'm a little worried I am showing too much water shed in the mountains.

Did I miss anythong, anything seem wrong? or does anyone see something that could be better represented?
feel free to comment.

[Deadshade]

A suggestion for your climatic attempts.

As it is impossible to establish a full detailed climatology and certainly not the seasonal variations, it is useful to concentrate only on the largest invariant features which are true for any spherical planet with an atmosphere. These are :
- Hadley cells
- monsoons
- jet streams

Fronts and pressures are just small scale consequences of these large features and fluctuate seasonally much more wildly.

- Hadley cells (the Earth has also 2 weaker cells in each hemisphere) are the engine of atmospheric circulation. Because of them there are always low pressures at equator and high pressures in tropics.
The consequence is that northern trade winds blow from NE to SW (supposing the same rotation as the Earth) between 30° N and equator.
The southern trade winds blow from SE to NW between 30° S and equator.
In these 2 picture you see how the atmospheric circulation is organised in cells and what that implies for pressures. The second one shows vertical atmospheric velocities (red is down and blue is up) - you see that the rising flow is nicely concentrated on the equator while the falling flow around +/- 30° is more irregular and the intensity depends on whether it's over continent or ocean.
Things are identical for the 1 or 2 cells beyond the Hadley. Small planets will have 2, larger (like Earth) 3. Very large perhaps 4 - it is still unsure and poorly understood.

Hadley cells2.pngHadley cells.png



- Monsoons are a consequence of differential heating between continents and oceans. So here the geography of continents and oceans matters. In summer continents heat more and faster than oceans so that the air above them rises (low pressure) and the water saturated air over oceans flows then towards the continents. It rises then over continents to close the loop and therefore cools down what leads to massive condensation and monsoon rains.
In winter it's opposite, the low pressures are above ocean and the high pressures above continents. Monsoons are not independent from the Hadley circulation but interact with it. That's why it is very hard to locate them just by a guess. approximately you ll find them on places where continents are around +/- 20% and there is a vast ocean S respectively N of them.

- Jet streams are broadly marking the limits of the circulation cells. They meander all the time like rivers and when they move N or S they dramatically change the weather N and S of them.

So when you create your climate only with these 3 features (you have to decide if your planet has 2 or 3 cells per hemisphere) you are sure that you will obtain a very realistic planet.

Last suggestion : climate is defined by long term means. That's why it is not interesting to look at seasonal means which are very noisy with the exception of the largest features like monsoons.
To do a map you don't need to know how weather changes from one month to the other. Only averages matter.

Once you have the long term averages of temperatures and position the Hadley cells on the map, you can add all the little détails you want provided that they don't contradict the "big" players.

[ascanius]

A suggestion for your climatic attempts.

As it is impossible to establish a full detailed climatology and certainly not the seasonal variations, it is useful to concentrate only on the largest invariant features which are true for any spherical planet with an atmosphere. These are :
- Hadley cells
- monsoons
- jet streams

Fronts and pressures are just small scale consequences of these large features and fluctuate seasonally much more wildly.

- Hadley cells (the Earth has also 2 weaker cells in each hemisphere) are the engine of atmospheric circulation. Because of them there are always low pressures at equator and high pressures in tropics.
The consequence is that northern trade winds blow from NE to SW (supposing the same rotation as the Earth) between 30° N and equator.
The southern trade winds blow from SE to NW between 30° S and equator.
In these 2 picture you see how the atmospheric circulation is organised in cells and what that implies for pressures. The second one shows vertical atmospheric velocities (red is down and blue is up) - you see that the rising flow is nicely concentrated on the equator while the falling flow around +/- 30° is more irregular and the intensity depends on whether it's over continent or ocean.
Things are identical for the 1 or 2 cells beyond the Hadley. Small planets will have 2, larger (like Earth) 3. Very large perhaps 4 - it is still unsure and poorly understood.

- Monsoons are a consequence of differential heating between continents and oceans. So here the geography of continents and oceans matters. In summer continents heat more and faster than oceans so that the air above them rises (low pressure) and the water saturated air over oceans flows then towards the continents. It rises then over continents to close the loop and therefore cools down what leads to massive condensation and monsoon rains.
In winter it's opposite, the low pressures are above ocean and the high pressures above continents. Monsoons are not independent from the Hadley circulation but interact with it. That's why it is very hard to locate them just by a guess. approximately you ll find them on places where continents are around +/- 20% and there is a vast ocean S respectively N of them.

- Jet streams are broadly marking the limits of the circulation cells. They meander all the time like rivers and when they move N or S they dramatically change the weather N and S of them.

So when you create your climate only with these 3 features (you have to decide if your planet has 2 or 3 cells per hemisphere) you are sure that you will obtain a very realistic planet.

Last suggestion : climate is defined by long term means. That's why it is not interesting to look at seasonal means which are very noisy with the exception of the largest features like monsoons.
To do a map you don't need to know how weather changes from one month to the other. Only averages matter.

Once you have the long term averages of temperatures and position the Hadley cells on the map, you can add all the little détails you want provided that they don't contradict the "big" players.

I'm finding the climate map very frustrating to be honest and I think I'm going to take a break from climates for now. I was using Pixies tutorial, it's nice to have a set of steps to follow though I find myself having to go back an rely on the information like you mentioned. I've managed to get in the ballpark but still have a lot of work to do. The major climates are not too hard to figure out like desert, rainforest, even mosoon, it's the others like medeterrainian and a few others the are giving me difficulty. Anyway thanks for the interest and information.

I finished the heightmap for the northern continent and it's basically the same as what I already posted above just complete.

height NW.jpg

Right now I'm working more towards the final look of the map.
MapL01.png

I'm debating on going towards the left/west or the rest of the mountain range in terms of color and style. The left/west coast style the areas where the color is thicker without the background showing through) I think creates a lot more depth and subtle variation, though it's a lot more work. The rest has a much cleaner look, and is faster which is a plus.

Any thoughts?

[groovey]

Holy cow ascanius, the style on the central bit looks awesome! Good stuff!

The raw heightmap with the plain colors looks very good too, very detailed, but as you know, I'm not apt to give technical thoughs about it since I've no idea about it.

I'm so glad to see you working on your project a bit.

[Azélor]

I just noticed the thread has been updated !

Your mountains look good, they are so detailed! I wanted to avoid getting too much in the details because i was afraid I might make it look wrong or inconsistent.
Your doing well so far but I find that the plains look dull in comparison.

[Azélor]

And climates: it is very complicated to do something realistic because it requires to consider a lot of variables at the same time.
Pixie's model is flawed in some places. The biggest problem is probably the approximation factor. Each steps error stacks with the others. And I find that the resulting climates of Palamb are not that realistic.

While Pixie's method is not without merit, (I admit that his maps look really professional) I would rather use it as an indicator rather than a definitive climate map.

If the planet is similar to Earth, I would recommend to use a simplified and standardized classification of the climates that uses precise criteria. Some are based of temperature, altitude, latitude (ex: cold desert are too cold to form between the tropics), precipitation, and geographic location (east vs west). Yes, some climates are almost exclusively found either on the east or west coasts.

You can have a look here at my answer on Worldbuilding SE: http://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/1395/147
The first part is a general explanation on the climate. The forth part is actually about the different climates and how to place them.
I tried to include all the main factors and to be as concise as possible.
I'm not 100% sure but I think tweaked some numbers about the temperatures here and there to be sure climates would not overlap. The original classification is a bit more complex : the difference between Cwb and Cwc is the number of months with a temperature below 10. (3 vs 4 or more). They still overlap but that is why they need to be painted on the map instead of just generating them with a automatic method.

[Hilded]

You can have a look here at my answer on Worldbuilding SE: http://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/1395/147
The first part is a general explanation on the climate. The forth part is actually about the different climates and how to place them.

I've been following this thread with interest as it has some impact on the overall design of an old campaign world that I'm revisiting. I found that link you mentioned on Worldbuilding quite informative, @Azelor. Thanks.