Alright, hopefully I've settled on mostly-final landshapes. I needed to move on with this, so I went ahead and laid down general mountain ranges and coastal shelves. The world creation thus far is not based on tectonics, so the landmasses/mountain ranges/coastal shelves are kind of just placed in a psuedo-realistic way, although I want to it to feel real, even if a land makeup like this would be pretty hard to explain with tectonics.
So Ive been trying to map out the ocean currents, and this is my 5th attempt. The way my world is laid out, the currents are giving me a headache. Any criticism and/or suggestions are greatly appreciated. I'm not sure if I'm doing too many currents either, or if it should be more simplified than this. Ive also attached the same map with numbers marking most of the currents, to make it easier for someone to point out specific currents if need be.
The black lines seems to indicate that you have a strong current at the equator. Maybe there are too many arrows and it give the wrong impression. The rest look ok.
Very original land shapes, I really like the overall display.
Yeah, I suppose your map produces a maze of currents. The planet will have a lot of shallow currents, fast currents and the whole lot!
As for your work, it looks pretty good to me. There is only one place where I think you got it slightly wrong. I don't think current 38 would split across that sea. Cold currents run deep and stick to the coast and that split would generate a cold current moving against the wind and away from the coast. I think it would be warm water form the equator (from currents 37 and 41) that would fill that space. But, really, not sure at all.
There's a second engine for ocean currents, which is the sinking of salty water from the equator and the upwelling of fresh water at the cold currents. I chose to ignore this in the "sort-of-tutorial" you mentioned, maybe it can't be ignored in your map to understand what would be going on. Yet, I'd be satisfied with this.
Thanks for checking it out, so far Ive done maybe 10 different versions, and I think this is the best version Ive come up with so far. I just fixed the area you talked about. Im wondering, does it make sense to have water coming into an area but not coming out? Or can this be explained by smaller currents that arent worth mapping, or something? For instance, the area I fixed (around currents 38, 37, 41) There are a few currents bringing water into that gyre, but none leaving it. Also, current 50/52 brings water into the southern pole gyre which connects to the 38,37,41 gyre, and there is no currents leaving this area. Is this something that needs to be fixed or is that normal?Originally Posted by Pixie
I've also started trying to work on the next step of your tutorial, although Im not sure what else to take into account when placing the ITCZ/Polar fronts and pressure zones other than everything moves up north slightly in July and south slightly in January, with greater distances over land. But Ill post what I came up with.
Alright, Ive attempted to map out the low and high pressure areas, although I feel as though I dont know exactly what Im doing. Any advice on this?
Never tried to make a map like this last one, so I can't really offer advice. But I think that one needs to bear in mind that we're looking for patterns and avoid making "stills" when it comes to mapping climate.
As for your previous maps, (with ITCZ and everything else). I think you should place those large low pressure centers (green) in the "warm" hemisphere only - that's south in january and north in july. And also, your landmasses don't seem big enough to have such a pronounced curve on the ITCZ. This is my opinion based on comparison to Earth's patterns - I'm no climatologist.
As for your currents, I'm no oceanographer either, but I found these gems:
PlanetInAction.com - "Perpetual Ocean demo"
NASA | The Ocean: A Driving Force for Weather and Climate - YouTube
I am always amazed at the level of detail and science that goes into these types of maps. I caught your landmasses and thought to myself " Wow those look like they were created by the tears of the One Dragon, the World Giver".. but that's me I could never get my head around all of the science to do what you are doing. Keep up the great work and have some rep!!
I am the breath of Dragons...The Song of Mountains...The Stories of Rivers....The Heart of Cities.... I am A Cartographer....
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Another attempt at a world map
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fun...s_wind_jan.gif
This map of earth shows the itzc dipping quite a bit over africa and south america, but i suppose i may have exaggerated the dipping a bit too much on my eastern continent.
As for the pressure map, i was trying to figure out where the average pressure zones would be located, a pattern, like in this map of earth. I also felt lead to do this by geoffs climate cookbook when he talks about continents becoming low pressure zones during summer and merging with the itcz and polar fronts, etc. I felt compelled to map this so i could hopefully more accurately map the wind currents.
And as for ocean currents i suppose ill have to do more research on the looping of currents, it does feel odd having "dead ends" and im not sure how ill fix it unless i have currents breaking through the equator to coninue onto the other hemosphere.
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