Fictional, Yet Realistic World Map Climate Building?

Son of Leman Russ

Banned
Alright, here's a case about the fictional world Map I made... some Alien world, yet quite similar in composition with our earths.

Assume this fictional planet has size, as well as day and night cycles quite similar with our Earth, the land composition, etc - etc, are also the same, so does gravitic accelerations as well as the Lunar tidal power. (there's a moon with similar size as well)

And assume at first... no human or sentient being there... so this is a natural world...

q1raw8h.png


Some questions from a newbie in map making (me)
1) Where would the realistic mountain ranges present? assuming the map is depicting coasts at the sea level.
2) About the climates and the possible general oceanic current, yes this world's Antartica is on the north, and if you squint, you can see this world is basically earth upside down with some changes on... but I like to ask experienced opinion about where I shall realistically put the desert, steppes, and likely fertile riverlands...
3) Did anyone knew about some tool to map the map (pardon the pun) into a surface of a ball? in 3D viewer?

Many thanks
 
metastasis_d

metastasis_d

Son of Leman Russ said:
Some questions from a newbie in map making (me)
1) Where would the realistic mountain ranges present? assuming the map is depicting coasts at the sea level.
Click to expand...

Well, you do seem to have made an upside-down Earth, so look at where plate tectonics have created mountains on Earth and you can kind of adjust them and see where continental plates may have moved around on this world.

2) About the climates and the possible general oceanic current, yes this world's Antartica is on the north, and if you squint, you can see this world is basically earth upside down with some changes on... but I like to ask experienced opinion about where I shall realistically put the desert, steppes, and likely fertile riverlands...
Click to expand...
Once you know where mountain ranges are, you can start to look at where continental climates might be affected by them. Additionally, look at the oceanic currents on the Earth and how they affect climate. That'll tell you where areas should be somewhat arid and which areas would be in rain shadows behind mountains and such.
 

Emperor Julian

There's a really cool program, Clima-Sim, made by my science teacher that will simulate global temperature patterns. However, the free demo does not allow one to change the distance from the sun and orbit beyond the pre-set scenarios and sun brightness and other astronomical features, and the demo is a bit glitchy. That should not matter if you are keeping all of that the exact same as earth though.

If you do not want to spend 50 dollars, then if you post the complete map (with mountain ranges, forests, deserts, etc.) I can adopt it for the program and I'll run it for you to get the temperatures.

When designing the climate, remember the climate belts of earth caused by the wind patterns:

pressure_belts.jpg


Areas of low pressure tend to have a lot of rain, areas of high pressure don't. Looking at a map of Africa for example, one can see that by the equator are all the rainforests, while to the north and South it becomes drier and desert.

Of course, there are exceptions: India gets a lot of rain due to the ITCZ shifting dramatically to the north due to the huge temperature fluctuations of the giant landmass of Asia. Your major landmass will have a similar effect. Meanwhile, the Southeastern United States and Southeastern China both get wet tropical air from the South due to being to the west of the high-pressure anticyclones over the oceans, and thus getting air from the Southeast from the warm tropic seas. In the Southern Hemisphere, this effect is reversed since the anticyclones move the opposite directions; the western sides of continents will be wet while the eastern sides dry.
 
metastasis_d

metastasis_d

Emperor Julian said:
There's a really cool program, Clima-Sim, made by my science teacher that will simulate global temperature patterns. However, the free demo does not allow one to change the distance from the sun and orbit beyond the pre-set scenarios and sun brightness and other astronomical features, and the demo is a bit glitchy. That should not matter if you are keeping all of that the exact same as earth though.

If you do not want to spend 50 dollars, then if you post the complete map (with mountain ranges, forests, deserts, etc.) I can adopt it for the program and I'll run it for you to get the temperatures.
Click to expand...

That's a pretty amazing program. How much control do you have over coastlines, mountains, lakes, etm.?
 

Emperor Julian

metastasis_d said:
That's a pretty amazing program. How much control do you have over coastlines, mountains, lakes, etm.?
Click to expand...
You can draw the continents, with deserts, forests, plains, and whatnot and put in mountains and glaciers. You can draw whatever you like, even if it is unrealistic (such as permanent glaciers on the equator and a forest at the poles) You can't really fine-tune the world, because you have to draw the entire planet, and the cells are fairly large:

picmain.gif


With the free version, the setting such as brightness of the sun, eccentricity of the orbit, axial tilt of the planet, and amount of carbon dioxide in the air can be set to the present, the pre-industrial era, the cretaceous, Permian, last Ice Age, and several thousand years in the future (and it has the geography there pre-saved as well). With the versions that cost money, you can adjust those settings to whatever you want (creating a Uranus-tilt or a day that lasts for months, or see what happens if the earth orbits a dwarf star).
 
metastasis_d

metastasis_d

Emperor Julian said:
You can draw the continents, with deserts, forests, plains, and whatnot and put in mountains and glaciers. You can draw whatever you like, even if it is unrealistic (such as permanent glaciers on the equator and a forest at the poles) You can't really fine-tune the world, because you have to draw the entire planet, and the cells are fairly large:

With the free version, the setting such as brightness of the sun, eccentricity of the orbit, axial tilt of the planet, and amount of carbon dioxide in the air can be set to the present, the pre-industrial era, the cretaceous, Permian, last Ice Age, and several thousand years in the future (and it has the geography there pre-saved as well). With the versions that cost money, you can adjust those settings to whatever you want (creating a Uranus-tilt or a day that lasts for months, or see what happens if the earth orbits a dwarf star).
Click to expand...

Shut up and take my money. All of it. Just roll around in my cash while I play with this program.
 

Deleted member 14396

I have a map I'd like it run on if that's cool ? Its an earth with a geological POD that I have been working on can't seem to get the climate right with paint.

New Eden full world.png
 
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