WIP - Batai

[Gidde]

Keep in mind as you build your world that with deserts at the equator that means your planet has next to 0 axial tilt, which means you won't have much seasonal climate change at all. If you have more of a tilt, you have more seasonal climates, but your arid area splits and moves to the degree of tilt (hence Earth with an axial tilt of around 23 degrees has arid belts at the Tropics, which are 23 degrees north and south of the equator).

[Master TMO]

The desert has it's origins at the Horse latitudes, with hot dry air going both SW and NE from the 30 degree line and tall mountain ranges are completely blocking rain from getting there to relieve it. That's why the coastlines got more rain dumped on them - the rain that *should* have gone to the desert is getting dropped early or shunted around. At least, that was my thinking.

[Gidde]

Ah cool, just wanted to make sure you had considered it. Zoomed out it looked like it was centered on the equator. Looking good, regardless

[jwbjerk]

Spent the day adjusting rainfall on Batai. I may be too detail oriented, working the base data to produce the climate I want in an area, rather than just painting in the climate directly.

That's the way i'm doing it. Weather you are being too picky probably depends on weather this level of detail is fun for you or frustrating.

Here is the adjusted rainfall and climate maps.

I can figure out some of this, but not all of the colors you used for climates are self-evident. A legend would be nice.

Is grey tundra/permafrost? If these mountains are supposed to be roughly like earth's, i think you've been too aggressive in bringing colder climates near the equator with the mountains. It's true that as you ascend a mountains climate changes in a similar way to moving toward a pole, but at least on earth, most of the square miles in "mountains" is much, much lower than the peaks. Yes, the top of the tropical Andes are much colder than at sea-level, but you don't see a big blob of "tundra" there looking at a global Koppen map.

For the rainfall, green is low and red is high?

Keep in mind as you build your world that with deserts at the equator that means your planet has next to 0 axial tilt, which means you won't have much seasonal climate change at all. If you have more of a tilt, you have more seasonal climates, but your arid area splits and moves to the degree of tilt (hence Earth with an axial tilt of around 23 degrees has arid belts at the Tropics, which are 23 degrees north and south of the equator).

I'm not claiming that latitude has nothing to do with desert formation, but it's certainly not the only factor. If you look at earth you can find deserts on the equator (Ethiopia), and well-watered lands right on the tropics of cancer and capricorn, (China, Florida, North-eastern Argentina).

An area that mountains prevent from getting moisture is going to be a desert no matter what it's latitude.

[altasilvapuer]

TMO, how is that you are still a grey pip? BONK!

I love your attention to detail here, and I'm eager to see where this goes from here. You have me getting very antsy to get back into my map, as soon as I can get the scratch disks large enough that Photoshop can actually OPEN my map. Fail, ASP; fail.

-asp

[Master TMO]

@jwbjerk - Sorry for the climate colors - they're the default colors used by Fractal Terrains, and I believe they were picked more so that different terrains would be distinctly obvious. The final version will use a more intuitive color scheme. And I'll look at the temperature of the central mountains - I hadn't actually adjusted those yet. That's the way FT set it. Adjusting inland temps shall be my next task, as I think I've finished the coastlines now. I might not have thought of it if you hadn't pointed it out to me though. Thanks. I'll have to look at temps for Central Asia, see what they range. I believe that's the closest real-world equivalent to that area, or maybe the northern edge of the Himalayas. I've added a legend to the climate map post. I was going to put it here, but navigating between two different posts on two different pages probably would have been rather difficult. The legend is at a smaller scale and didn't insert very well into the actual map, so I just left it separate.

@Altas - Thanks much for the Bonk and the encouragement!

[Master TMO]

Oh, and yes. Low rainfall is green and high is red. Again, default colors from FT.

[jwbjerk]

@jwbjerk - Sorry for the climate colors - they're the default colors used by Fractal Terrains, and I believe they were picked more so that different terrains would be distinctly obvious. The final version will use a more intuitive color scheme.

I've added a legend to the climate map post. I was going to put it here, but navigating between two different posts on two different pages probably would have been rather difficult. The legend is at a smaller scale and didn't insert very well into the actual map, so I just left it separate.

Thanks, i haven't used FT. Perhaps the colors are all second-nature to you FT users. Though i'm a little suspicious of what FT seems to produce. I don't know how it can tell the difference from climactic data between "tropical deciduous forest" "tropical evergreen forest". That's not a distinction i've seen on a real climate map before.

And I'll look at the temperature of the central mountains - I hadn't actually adjusted those yet. That's the way FT set it. Adjusting inland temps shall be my next task, as I think I've finished the coastlines now. I might not have thought of it if you hadn't pointed it out to me though. Thanks. I'll have to look at temps for Central Asia, see what they range. I believe that's the closest real-world equivalent to that area, or maybe the northern edge of the Himalayas.

Now that i know what the climates are, i can observe, overall your world seems to be much colder than Earth. Which is fine if that's your intention. Tundra in many places comes almost 2/3rds of the way from the poles, while on earth it barley extends 1/3rd of the way from the poles. This makes your boreal forest clumps between the tropics more understandable, though still not something i would expect in such large quantities.

There's three possibilities i can think of:
1) FT has exaggerated the elevation beyond earth norms, and thus the temperature makes sense
2) These mountains are much flatter than earth mountains (as if you filled in most of the space between peaks), and thus peak temperatures are widespread, and show up on a global map
3) FT doesn't calculate temperature to elevation well.


I look forward to seeing how you progress.

[Master TMO]

Heh. Perhaps instant email notification of posts on this thread isn't such a good idea. I keep interrupting work to come back here.

Elevation may be a part of it, as I have run the 'Fill Basins' command a few times. The assumption being that basins would eventually fill with either earth or water. And the southern half of the Great Desert actually went below sealevel. That was one BIG honkin' basin. And it got filled in up to the level of the surrounding mountains.

The southern desert elevation seems to be in the 7000's, the central/north central section is in the 8-9k's, and the very north is 3k, but also quickly changes into other non-desert climate types. So most of the desert is way up there in elevation. Higher than Denver. However, one of my thoughts was to reintroduce some of that southern basin. It's not as if there will be much rain to fill it up with water or earth. But if I do, that will be one of the last tasks I do, as some steps will require me to fill basins in.

Right now I'm working on getting good rivers in there using FTs river command. It's a bit tricky making sure elevations are all good, as it is possible if you're not careful to have rivers flow uphill (FT runs the rivers until they hit the sea - if the river winds up in a basin without hitting the sea it will just climb right back out the other side and keep going).

[Master TMO]

Hmm - given what I'm told 'bonk' is slang for over in Britain, I'm guessing any Brit members of this forum are laughing themselves silly over the line '@Altas - Thanks much for the Bonk'.