TNE Only: Climate and world building

[Stephen Rider]

Has anyone worked through a planet with world building climates? I've given it several goes and I'm finding it very challenging to create a planet with any jungle climate that isn't fast rotating and low axial tilt.

Thanks for any support and may your players be creative enough to keep you on your toes, but not so creative you throw out a world map

 

[Whipsnade]

Several sourcebooks tackle planetary climates. You can find rules in WBH and GT:FI among other places. Of course those rules will produce several climates for the planet in question and not a single climate.

Buck Roger's silly "It was raining on Mongo" example has been copied by a lot of bad sci-fi with Star Wars being the worst offender. Using any realistic climate rules means you're not going to have a shirtsleeve world which is entirely jungle or snow or whatever. The operative word there being "realistic" of course.

If you want a jungle planet in you setting simply impose it by fiat. You can't use the rules meant to create realistic climates to produce unrealistic results, so don't bother. Just say Amazon III is completely covered in kudzu and hope your players don't mind!

 

[Stephen Rider]

Right and in the WBH book Jungle biome happens between 20c and 40c year round. When you include any sort of an axial tilt you end up with a spread of 1.6C per degree of tilt, so at 23.5 degrees of tilt the Earth is going to have 37.6C degrees of spread, with another 12 (nighttime minus) and 6 (daytime plus), that's going to limit on a theoretical basis jungles to just one hex row in the north and south.

Is there something that I'm missing in those calculations to figure out climate biomes?

 

[Whipsnade]

Is there something that I'm missing in those calculations to figure out climate biomes?

Nothing much wrong with the math, but did you add the greenhouse effect? Anyway, it's your perceptions which need to be tweaked more than your math.

Take the WBH map and map Earth. How many real jungle regions on a real planet extend past the first two hex rows north and south of the equator?

 

[Stephen Rider]

Maybe I'm expecting a jungle belt to be a bit wider than a single hex row if it's not at the equator - could be a mistake on my part.

As long as the greenhouse effect is only added for figuring out the base temp, yes, I included it.

The Hi/Lo temps I get are:

Col Hi/Lo
1 40 20
2 34 14
3 34 7
4 34 -1
5 34 -9
6 34 -16
7 28 -22
8 22 -28
9 16 -34
10 10 -40
11 4 -46

So perfect jungle right on the rows on each side of the equator, but they fall out for the next row up, so it misses a lot of South East Asia, unless I missed something and Traveller doesn't consider that area jungle?

 

[flykiller]

unless I missed something

ocean currents? the pilgrims, used to the warmer weather in england because of the gulf currents moving north from the equator, were quite surprised to find that new england at the same latitude was so terribly much colder because of the gulf stream moving south from the polar regions.

 

[Ishmael]

WBH is based off of CT book 6 Scouts and the temperature equation given there is incorrect.
I understand that GURPS:First_In is correct, but I've never seen it.
Best to do a bit of research into zero-dimensional energy balance models of climate and go from there.

 

[Whipsnade]

So perfect jungle right on the rows on each side of the equator, but they fall out for the next row up, so it misses a lot of South East Asia, unless I missed something and Traveller doesn't consider that area jungle?

Weather? Ocean currents? Jet streams? Why is there a temperate rain forest in Washington but not in San Diego? Why are there penguins living on the Galapagos? Why is the northern seacoast of Chile the most arid place on Earth?

Google "monsoon" and learn why South and Southeast Asia has jungles.

 

[Stephen Rider]

GURPS: FI takes into account coastal effects, but doesn't look at the effects of different atmosphere densities on temperature distribution.

So it's time to go look at the math books and then figure out how to convert them for other planets.

http://www.cims.nyu.edu/~mostovyi/Course/EBM/zero_dim_ebm.html

 

[flykiller]

Why are there penguins living on the Galapagos?

convergent evolution (they're not penguins)?

 

[Whipsnade]

convergent evolution (they're not penguins)?

Now that's an idea to run with!

What's that GURPS setting? The one where the Trinity test "ripped open a hole" in something and brought magic back into the world? Technomancer, I think?

Anyway, despite the Trinity Event Stalin still decides to test a Soviet bomb but down in Antarctica where the side effects "won't matter". Bad call.

The same weirdness erupts, penguins become some sort of magic-using, Cthulhu-like, hive mind, and chase/kill every human being off the continent.

Now something is growing in strength at the South Pole... cue evil music

ISTR, a psionic animals entry on the encounter table in one of CT's adventures.