Terraformed Venus

[acrosome]

OK, I'm retired from the Army now, started at my new job, and have time for my silly hobby again...

Here are winds:





As expected, with the axial tilt changed southern Ovda and Thetis will have significant monsoons.

And here are the influences:





The severity of the continental influence in the northern continent is almost reversed between the seasons, due to their odd shapes leading to encroachment by the hot and cold influences. For instance, it's hard to justify having the continental influence extend southwest into the other continent the way that Asia's does into the Middle East and Africa in July.

I could probably narrow those influences and extend the continental zone, though, if others think that's more likey.

[acrosome]

Here are provisional temperatures:

January



July



I'll probably spend a bit of time beautifying these before moving on to precipitation- there are a few very unnatural-looking lines. Criticism is welcome.

Here are elevations and a few land labels, for reference:



And currents:

[acrosome]

I'm working on precipitation. This is all before taking elevation into account, since I want to be sure that my base maps are good, first. Here they are, but I'll have some questions for the hive mind:


ITCZ



So, In the ITCZs that large massif in central Atlu is giving me fits. Looking at the Andes it would seem that mountains that high are enough to block the rains. So in particular what do you think of that rainshadow in January? But it also has severe effects in July.

Hmm. Hella monsoons in southern Thetis and Ovda. I made the area between them a funnel, to get rains over the mountains to feed a Nile-equivalent river that showed up in Artemis when I ran it through Wilbur. But I think I might need to make those ITCZ rains smaller, st least in Western Thetis. Azelor mentions that Africa's is smaller because it's near the Sahara, and a good chunk of Thetis and Artemis should be desert.


High Latitude Dominant Westerlies



Should these rains curve eastward over Artemis as I show them?
Would smaller landmasses like Boala, Fea, and Bellona get rains from the Westerlies? Should I put westerlies on every little island in the correct latitudes?


Extratropical Storm Paths



I think that Chitaru and Manatum have too long a fetch to get these storms, like Africa on Earth. Argument?


Winter Monsoons



This is the one I'm probably most shaky on, since I don't really understand them. I sort of waffled on placing them on every little island in the right latitudes, versus just ones near continents. Which is right?

And my final question is, how do I combine all of these into a single layer in GIMP? For the life of me I can't figure it out.

[acrosome]

Wow.

Uh, I just read through that thread with Azelor and Charerg refining the climate models. I see that there is now a script for Gimp. Yay! But a lot of the model has changed and I might be back to the drawing board yet again. Boo. And there is another script- in Python- by AzureWings. I'm currently searching through to see if there are intelligible instructions for it anywhere.

I think I rushed those pressure and wind maps in an attempt to get to the "good stuff" more quickly. And more to the point I think I finally understand how to place red and dark red on the temperature maps, so I'm re-doing them more diligently.

[acrosome]

For those who might be interested, Azelor, Charerg, and AzureWings have produced some incredible tutorials and scripts for working out world climates. Incredible, but at times hard to follow, that is, especially once they start collaborating after Azelor's basic tutorial is described. A few years ago I thought that I was one of the better "climate guys" here but these fellows went all scientific and coder on me, and now I am but an acolyte. Hopefully they'll put together something more formal at some point but they do all have day jobs...

A Reference Map for my terraformed Venus:



I tried to be more formal and diligent with the pressures and winds this time:



I think they're looking much better. Still big monsoons in Thetis and Ovda. Oddly, maybe a monsoon in eastern Chitaru?

My next dilemma is continental influences. I have to decide if Boala or Bethar are large enough to have them.
Both Australia and Greenland have them, but neither of these landmasses is the size of Australia. Bethar is about Greenland-sized, but on Earth Greenland's bit of continental influence is more associated with North America's than independent.

I don't think either would have them. So here is what I have:



I modeled how the July continental influence on Artemis/Thetis/Ovda runs way west onto Northern Atlu on the way Asia's runs across the Middle East into North Africa, but the landforms are very different so that might not be realistic. Thoughts?

I left off the warm influences in the tropics and the summer hemisphere since they have no effect, to keep things less cluttered in my mind.

With that, here are basic temperature isotherms WITHOUT taking altitude into consideration yet:



I'm still beautifying the final temperature maps.

[acrosome]

Final isotherms:



I'm much happier with how these look.

I tend to produce elevation contours between the 1000-meter steps used in the tutorial to help guide me in making some of the lines less linear and more natural-looking. So in the tropics in summer I might have warmer temperatures crawl up an extra few hundred meters, or nearer the poles in winter have the colder temperatures crawl a few hundred meters lower, etc. It keeps the isotherms from looking straight and artificial, and it's only a bit of extra work. There is really not much of a remedy far north in that larger landmass, though- it's pretty flat.

[randigpanzrall]

definitively a very cute project and a good idea

[acrosome]

Here are some very basic precipitation maps. Unlike the above steps I haven't done this a half-dozen times before, so I'm pretty shaky on it and would love some criticism.

I'm using the eight-color schema since I hope to use AzureWings' Python script to generate climates, but haven't yet added in the two driest colors (the equivalent of Azelor's "magenta penalty") because I just want to be sure that I have the basic precipitation right first.



And here's that reference map again:



Chitaru looks odd with heavy rains on both sides, because it catches both the extratropical storm path and the westerlies. Bethar is similar. Does that seem right?

The large massif in Atlu still gives me fits. Does that rainshadow look right? And are those mountains in southern Atlu high enough to block the rains from crossing the continent? They aren't as high as the Andes...

I'm also worried that my rainy areas don't seem to extend as far as Azelor's example Earth maps, but my terrain usually just doesn't seem to support that since high mountains are supposed to stop the rains. Should I make any of these rainy areas bigger? I'm especially looking at the north coast of Artemis, as well as Chitaru and Bethar, both of which have high central mountains.

Once I'm happy with this I'll add in the dry areas and do the elevation modifications. I'm kind of excited to be on this last step, and then I can feed it all through AzureWing's script. (And then I need to figure out the Holdridge life zones. I know that there is a tutorial for that but I don't think there is a script.)

[Charerg]

Comparing to the reference maps from the Climate tutorial thread, the precipitation maps seem too dry overall. Especially Artemis, being in similar latitudes to Europe seems suspiciously arid. Also I'd make the summer monsoon stronger and reaching further inland in the Thetis/Artemis/Ovda continent.

[acrosome]

Yeah, that's why I was asking about Artemis. I see what you're saying- I think I missed those 8-color reference maps you linked.

But do you think the monsoon would make it over those mountains? The Himalayas seem to stop them. Though, granted, Thetis and Ovda aren't quite as high as the Himalayas...

So more like this? (Remember- I haven't done altitude corrections yet- this is just the basic maps.)



Asteria and Dwibe kind of puzzle me, too. There aren't good analogs for them on Earth, i.e. at similar latitudes and not near larger continents.