Ask your geography, geology, meteorology, anthropology, and related questions here!

[...]

I can comment on what would drive people underground...

Generally it is either the threat OF or the actual act of something truly globally cataclysmic. The best example is the network of bunkers and survival shelters built during the Cold War period between the US and the USSR. In my own worldbuilding this is actually the theoretical idea behind the very existence of the Underdark.

The ancestral population of the Dark Elves or Drow had tunneled deep underground building vast structures, largely in secret or masking them as something else with magic. Then at some date a conflict was triggered that erupted into the equivalent of a global nuclear war. Across the planet great and terrible weapons were used to devastating effect. Other Elven nations used shielding spells and other magic to spare some of them, but only the Drow had built and developed a network of bunkers, some the size of cities, to ride out the ensuing apocalyptic winter and general devastation of the surface.

Though in my world, the actual Underdark is largely the artificial creation of Elves, not a natural place.

But you get the idea. The most likely things to drive people underground are things like a nuclear holocaust, an asteroid or comet impact, maybe even a star dying too close to the planet. Or some other creative disaster.

Yeah, I'm just going to go with my first idea. :P It seems to fit the mold quite well.

[NyuBomber]

1.) How big a land area can a single monarchy handle... Well, that depends on tech level, but for this... I'd say you're looking at a 'world' that's not bigger then China or the Roman Empire, as that seems to be the upper limit for a fantasy world's tech level.

I'd say 1,500 to 2,000 miles in each direction would fit. This would reduce your 'world' to a small continental area... which leads me to my next answer.

2.) How about this... draw a line from the 'south-west' corner to the 'north-west' corner. This is around where a latitude line would be with the distribution of environments you described. South-east of the line the environment is more tropical... effectively being the equivalent of moving south in the northern hemisphere on earth. North-west of the line the environment moves toward being more temperate with the western lands probably being so cold due to a polar current.

One simply way to explain why the map doesn't line up with the latitude is that the locals use magnetic north for their maps, and where they are the magnetic pole is around 45 degrees off from the actual pole.

I love you.

That all sounds great, thank you!

[NyuBomber]

Ello again,

Was further pondering what you were trying to tell me, SM, and now I have a clarification request.

2.) How about this... draw a line from the 'south-west' corner to the 'north-west' corner. This is around where a latitude line would be with the distribution of environments you described. South-east of the line the environment is more tropical... effectively being the equivalent of moving south in the northern hemisphere on earth. North-west of the line the environment moves toward being more temperate with the western lands probably being so cold due to a polar current.

One simply way to explain why the map doesn't line up with the latitude is that the locals use magnetic north for their maps, and where they are the magnetic pole is around 45 degrees off from the actual pole.

Did you mean a "vertical" latitude line like so:

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I'm having trouble reconciling your explanation with the given latitude line direction. Did you, in fact, mean "south-west to north-EAST" corner, like so:

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Also, would your explanation keep the "entire arctic edge," or did you picture it making the planet have north and south polar (EDIT: Well, northwest and southeast) arctic regions?

[Stellar_Magic]

I meant south-west to north-east.

At 1,500-2,000 miles for the land area... This area would be a bit small to be the whole planet. I figure that with a north-west arctic zone, and the south-east area being roughly tropical and close to the planet's equatorial region you can just say most of the rest of the planet is water.

So no, I'm not going with the edge of the whole map being arctic. I'm going with that diagonal line being around 30 degrees north of the equator. The south-east corner would roughly be around the -30 degrees south of the equator. This seems to roughly fit the climate distribution you have in the regions.

The north-west corner would be very close to the North pole.

[NyuBomber]

I meant south-west to north-east.

At 1,500-2,000 miles for the land area... This area would be a bit small to be the whole planet. I figure that with a north-west arctic zone, and the south-east area being roughly tropical and close to the planet's equatorial region you can just say most of the rest of the planet is water.

So no, I'm not going with the edge of the whole map being arctic. I'm going with that diagonal line being around 30 degrees north of the equator. The south-east corner would roughly be around the -30 degrees south of the equator. This seems to roughly fit the climate distribution you have in the regions.

The north-west corner would be very close to the North pole.

Got it, thank you!

[Stellar_Magic]

We need more questions...

Okay, this is one more for debate but... What do you see as the ultimate long-term effects of human created global warming? I'm not talking about 100 years into the future but 500 or a 1000.

[Aergoth]

Not sure how this works out on the thread. I've considered handwaving it as "it is so" but since the thread is here.
Elves in my homebrew setting are passengers on a sort of biological magitech-space-ark (yes it sounds silly) that broke up over the northern hemisphere of the campaign setting as it entered the atmosphere. How far would the fragments of this craft conceivably be scattered, assuming a roughly earth-sized world and that the bulk of the ship landed on a latitde analagous to midwestern north america?

[NyuBomber]

Not sure how this works out on the thread. I've considered handwaving it as "it is so" but since the thread is here.
Elves in my homebrew setting are passengers on a sort of biological magitech-space-ark (yes it sounds silly) that broke up over the northern hemisphere of the campaign setting as it entered the atmosphere. How far would the fragments of this craft conceivably be scattered, assuming a roughly earth-sized world and that the bulk of the ship landed on a latitde analagous to midwestern north america?

Assuming the pieces and people therein survive the descent and assuming the implication that the break up happened pretty high=up, I'd say it'd be reasonable for the parts to have a relatively wide area.

Let's say it broke up over the Kansas/Nebraska border. Depending on trajectory, I'd have it so pieces could land in the vicinity of the Utah/Colorado border, middle of Texas, Illinois/Indiana region, and/or North & South Dakota border.

Just me though.

[Roxxy]

Could any of you guys help me figure out a reason why a modern technology, wealthy, industrialized nation, geography roughly similar to Canada, might have a large city within the arctic circle?

[jqavins]

Could any of you guys help me figure out a reason why a modern technology, wealthy, industrialized nation, geography roughly similar to Canada, might have a large city within the arctic circle?

Mining town. Hot planet.

[Stellar_Magic]

Murmansk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murmansk

That's a military port and city of around 300,000 that's about as far north as you can possibly get (68 degrees north).

Other possible reasons... A relatively ice free port (due to current patterns) with oil fields in the nearby land area for export the oil, fishing industry... I'm sure there's more possible reasons.

[avr]

Refugees from some apocalyptic war or disaster perhaps. I think World War Z had zombies being unable to continue moving in subzero temperatures.

There's the Canberra/Washington DC answer too; the other places the country capital might be placed were deadlocked in competition against each other and this was a compromise site which couldn't rise to challenge the existing cities/states.

Alternately perhaps it's the Mecca for some religion.

[Corneel]

Could any of you guys help me figure out a reason why a modern technology, wealthy, industrialized nation, geography roughly similar to Canada, might have a large city within the arctic circle?

Apart from what has already been said before, and actually in combination with some of it - especially as mining town: site for internal banishment/exile Gulag-style (example: Vorkuta).

[CavemanDan]

I've got an idea for a setting where the sun goes around the planet (as many cultures used to think) rather than the other way around.

To make it a slightly more interesting (or needlessly complicated), I've decided that the sun doesn't merely orbit the planet in a circle but actually goes through the world - erupting out of an impossibly high mountain every dawn (called the World Spire), 'orbiting' one side of the planet every day and being dragged into a fanged maw every sunset (called the Pit).

The next day it would rise through the World Spire and descend down the planet further across its longitude (about the same as a time zone).

To help visualise all of this, I present the WORLD'S WORST MICROSOFT PAINT ART^TM:

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I'm sorry for subjecting your eyes to that but I'm much more comfortable with traditional media (and not just rubbish at drawing, honest ).

Anyway, my question(s) are how would this affect how the world works?

I'm going to presume this sun is not as hot as a real one (and may even be a flaming ball of rock to make it interesting) and so wouldn't just melt and/or explode the planet (because insert magical handwave here).

The rough changes I can think of are:

• There will be a light side and a dark side every day.
• The dark side will see the sun for a brief period at dawn if you are in the northern hemisphere (the World Spire side) or for a brief period at dusk if you are in the southern hemisphere (the Pit side).
• There won't be seasons in the traditional sense because the sun's path is constant.
• Different climates will be dependent on what latitude you are at in the world with cold climes on the side of/the base of the World Spire, temperate climates as you travel south to the equator and deserts/volcanic hell on earth as you head towards the Pit.
• Societies would have to get used to living in prolonged periods of light that get progressively dimmer until they experience long periods of darkness when the sun's orbit is one the other side of the planet.
• Any moon(s) would spend most of their time not being illuminated and so would often be new moons (unless they emitted their own light rather than reflected it - which I'm tempted to do).

That's all the big stuff I can think of. I'd be grateful for any comments or suggestions about the obvious things I've missed.

[Everyl]

I've got an idea for a setting where the sun goes around the planet (as many cultures used to think) rather than the other way around.

To make it a slightly more interesting (or needlessly complicated), I've decided that the sun doesn't merely orbit the planet in a circle but actually goes through the world - erupting out of an impossibly high mountain every dawn (called the World Spire), 'orbiting' one side of the planet every day and being dragged into a fanged maw every sunset (called the Pit).

The next day it would rise through the World Spire and descend down the planet further across its longitude (about the same as a time zone).

To help visualise all of this, I present the WORLD'S WORST MICROSOFT PAINT ART^TM:

Spoiler

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I'm sorry for subjecting your eyes to that but I'm much more comfortable with traditional media (and not just rubbish at drawing, honest ).

Anyway, my question(s) are how would this affect how the world works?

I'm going to presume this sun is not as hot as a real one (and may even be a flaming ball of rock to make it interesting) and so wouldn't just melt and/or explode the planet (because insert magical handwave here).

The rough changes I can think of are:

• There will be a light side and a dark side every day.
• The dark side will see the sun for a brief period at dawn if you are in the northern hemisphere (the World Spire side) or for a brief period at dusk if you are in the southern hemisphere (the Pit side).
• There won't be seasons in the traditional sense because the sun's path is constant.
• Different climates will be dependent on what latitude you are at in the world with cold climes on the side of/the base of the World Spire, temperate climates as you travel south to the equator and deserts/volcanic hell on earth as you head towards the Pit.
• Societies would have to get used to living in prolonged periods of light that get progressively dimmer until they experience long periods of darkness when the sun's orbit is one the other side of the planet.
• Any moon(s) would spend most of their time not being illuminated and so would often be new moons (unless they emitted their own light rather than reflected it - which I'm tempted to do).

That's all the big stuff I can think of. I'd be grateful for any comments or suggestions about the obvious things I've missed.

I'd think that the lands around the World Spire would be warmer than you're guessing. The sun might not get as close as it does around the equator, but assuming a roughly constant "orbital" speed, it shines on the Spire a lot longer than anywhere else. The southern hemisphere/Pit, meanwhile, spends most of its time in darkness, punctuated by brief, intense blasts of heat and light.

I suppose if you account for atmospheric thinning around the Spire, much of it would be cold simply for altitude reasons. That gets into interesting questions that I'm not equipped to answer, though - namely, just where would the center of gravity in an irregularly-shaped planet like that be? Your illustration, perhaps because it is rough, implies that gravity in this world would feel like it's pulling toward somewhere on the Spire side.

There are probably better art programs you could get as freeware, though as a non-artist, I can't tell you which ones. I used GIMP to make my avatar for this site, but that's more of a Photoshop substitute, not a drawing one.

[jqavins]

To help visualise all of this, I present the WORLD'S WORST MICROSOFT PAINT ART^TM:

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I'm sorry for subjecting your eyes to that but I'm much more comfortable with traditional media (and not just rubbish at drawing, honest .)

There are probably better art programs you could get as freeware, though as a non-artist, I can't tell you which ones. I used GIMP to make my avatar for this site, but that's more of a Photoshop substitute, not a drawing one.

How about using the "traditional media" you're comfortable with (I assume that means paper) then scanning the picture so created?

Anyway, I can't see any picture on my work computer, so I'll have to look at it later. Based on the description alone, I'd say one implication is that there are active gods. I'm pretty sure that there is no way of getting even close to the orbital behaivior you describe using real gravity and a little magic handwaving; you're going to need a truckload of magic handwaving, and that means gods. Highly active, even activist, gods. And that means all sorts of other things are possible; you could have a downright Seussian world here, if you want it, with no more handwaving than is already required.

[CavemanDan]

How about using the "traditional media" you're comfortable with (I assume that means paper) then scanning the picture so created?

Anyway, I can't see any picture on my work computer, so I'll have to look at it later. Based on the description alone, I'd say one implication is that there are active gods. I'm pretty sure that there is no way of getting even close to the orbital behaivior you describe using real gravity and a little magic handwaving; you're going to need a truckload of magic handwaving, and that means gods. Highly active, even activist, gods. And that means all sorts of other things are possible; you could have a downright Seussian world here, if you want it, with no more handwaving than is already required.

I haven't got access to a scanner and just wanted a rough thing to help explain my ramblings.

On the gods note, I was going to make the sun a god that had sacrificed themselves to provide light and heat to the world (much like Aztec mythology).

[Carl]

You probably get away without extending the planet like that if you wanted, i could mock it up in wings 3d to check, (well i think i can, shouldn't really be hard), if you like.

An underdark probably isn't geologically impossible, but it would be very difficult to have form and would be restricted to one geological area, and would be very much dependent on local geological conditions remaining stable, but there is a sort of basis for that so yeah, plausible, just really, really, bloody unlikely. Like "secret colony of undiscovered dinosaurs in the modern world" unlikely at a minimum, maybe much more so. I can go into details for the curious if you like but so far everyone discussing it seems to have gone for the "magic handwave lol" route since it is kinda easier.

[D2R]

Hi everyone ! I hope this is a proper place to ask several world-building related questions I've got...

The first question concerns Geography and Climatology for the most part.

Real World phenomena:

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As you may know, on planet Earth there are the so-called "prevailing winds", which constantly blow from one general direction. That includes the equatorial Trade Winds, which blow from the west toward the east in the middle latitudes, and the Westerlies, which blow in the opposite direction in higher latitudes. The prevailing winds largely form the climate of the world, e.g. the Trade Winds literally suck all the moisture out of the Sahara region, forming the immense desert - and simultaneously create the rain-forests in equatorial Africa by transferring water from the Indian ocean.

On most of the Earth, the prevailing winds are strongly affected by the continental landmasses they cross, which significantly limit the wind-speed and change the direction of the wind.

There is one exception, however: in the Southern Hemisphere, there's almost no continental landmass in the high latitudes. This vast oceanic expanse creates a natural phenomena know as the Roaring Forties - a region between 40 and 50 degrees latitude in the Southern Hemisphere which is characterized by constant anomalously strong Westerly winds and very frequent storms, of anomalous power as well.

In the Age of Sail, this phenomena was widely used for travel, most famously - the Clipper Route between England and Australia / East Indies. Strong constant winds sped up the ships significantly, making such course extremely attractive for the captains, while also dangerous, especially for low-tech sailing vessels of the past.

The so-called Furious Fifties and the Shrieking or Screaming Sixties lie further towards South and have similar, but stronger conditions.

The Idea:

Now, let's imagine a generally Earth-like world with all the continental landmass concentrated around the Poles - no large continents along the Equator.

If I'm right about that, in this case we're going to have anomalously strong Trade Winds blowing along the Equator and forming a region of very frequent tropical storms between maybe 5 and 30 degrees latitude in both hemispheres - the Roaring Thirties, the Furious Twenties and the Shrieking Teens (well that sounds ambiguous...), if you wish.

Now, finally, the question(s):

If the above-mentioned assumption correct, how would such phenomena affect the development of the local civilizations ?

First of all - can the strength of the wind and the frequency of storms be such that the hemispheres would be almost completely separated from one another - until sufficiently developed technology comes to use (steamers that do not rely on wind for propulsion ? maybe even submarines which are unaffected by the surface storms ?) I mean, is it possible without making the planet almost uninhabitable by human beings ? As far as I understand it, the strength of the Trade Winds is mostly affected by the amount of heat the planet receives from its Sun; so, to make the winds stronger, we'll have to tinker with solar radiation in tropical areas. However, I don't want my world to be too hot (not to mention to make its inhabitants a little crusty !) - I want mostly temperate-to-subtropical climates and at least small ice caps on the Poles...

Or, maybe, the problem is mostly psychological, and even in Earth-like conditions the growing-ever-stronger winds and lack of any land along the equator would be enough to prevent the attempts to go "beyond the edge of the world" until the civilization gets enough self-confidence and reaches a certain level of tech ?

I imagine that in such a world the theory of "flat Earth" (or maybe "hemispherical Earth" ?) would last for much longer than in our own world, and the only way to disprove it would be through astronomical observations (other planets are spherical and move around the Sun just like our own planet, so our planet is also most likely spherical, too).

Another thing I can predict is the use of our "Roaring Thirties" (the least extreme of the three regions) as a sort of Fast Travel System - even more useful than the Earth's Roaring 40's, as they would be much closer to the inhabited areas. In such a world, seafaring would be a very fast and convenient (while not completely safe) way to travel, connecting all coastal regions in a hemisphere as soon as sufficiently seaworthy sailing ships are developed. I guess steam-powered vessels (or even modern-day Diesel-powered ships) would be of much less use in such a world, as "clippers" or resembling advanced sailing ships would be more efficient for long-distance travel and cargo shipping (my world has roughly late-XIX... mid-XX century stage of development). Also, due to the lack of land along the equator, there would be much less opportunities to refuel en-route, and even highly developed steamships hat to refuel very often [in my world, there may be an "artificial island" floating base(-s ?) on the equator, specifically built to refuel ships en-route from one hemisphere to another; that's a spoiler, however]. Maybe steamers would be restricted almost entirely to coastal navigation and war.

One more concern - how would the lack of continental landmass in the low latitudes affect the climate and other characteristics of the planet ? E.g., the ocean currents; would we have a local Gulf Stream that makes the North-Western corner of Eurasia a much more comfortable place to live ? It seems that we are going to have some east-to-west "Circumequatorial" current, but I just can't see the rest of the pattern.

All in all, that gives some very intriguing world-building opportunities... by the way, I assume I'm not the first to discover that ? Was such a concept used anywhere in fiction ?

[Carl]

I'm probably missing several important factors here but a key part of the sea vs land phenomena is that the ocean is far better at absorbing the suns energy that the land. So once air hits the land the maximum energy level the terrain below can support drops drastically.

In addition rates of temperature change have an effect, that's a big part of why things actually get more severe as you go south not less AFAIK. the south is actually a lot cooler and less energetic than the 40's. But the suddenness of the change creates some weird current effects, (and is even further from land), that lead to that.

The situation your describing would probably lead to a continuous chain of equatorial super hurricanes. They'd be able to build with far fewer limits, in fact you'd probably get seasonal movement of storms and if you got an really big ones you might get stable systems similar to Jupiters great red spot whose outer edges would stretch overland battering coastlines on a regular yearly, or possibly multi-yearly cycle. Certainly the coastlines can expect to receive regular and harsh batterings, so i'd expect local coastal communities to have to develop vessels and sailing techniques to survive it. So whilst i think it's would slow things down a lot, (mostly navigation issues, a stable compass that was unaffected by rolling of the ship would be a requirement), i don't think it would be quite as bad as the severity would suggest.


Also regarding the spider civilization earlier:


1. A species of hyper social spiders.

2. A species of vegetarian spider's, (well technically omnivores, but it's 90% veg).

Ridiculously Cute Picture.

[D2R]

I'm probably missing several important factors here but a key part of the sea vs land phenomena is that the ocean is far better at absorbing the suns energy that the land. So once air hits the land the maximum energy level the terrain below can support drops drastically.

In addition rates of temperature change have an effect, that's a big part of why things actually get more severe as you go south not less AFAIK. the south is actually a lot cooler and less energetic than the 40's. But the suddenness of the change creates some weird current effects, (and is even further from land), that lead to that.

The situation your describing would probably lead to a continuous chain of equatorial super hurricanes. They'd be able to build with far fewer limits, in fact you'd probably get seasonal movement of storms and if you got an really big ones you might get stable systems similar to Jupiters great red spot whose outer edges would stretch overland battering coastlines on a regular yearly, or possibly multi-yearly cycle. Certainly the coastlines can expect to receive regular and harsh batterings, so i'd expect local coastal communities to have to develop vessels and sailing techniques to survive it. So whilst i think it's would slow things down a lot, (mostly navigation issues, a stable compass that was unaffected by rolling of the ship would be a requirement), i don't think it would be quite as bad as the severity would suggest.

Thanks for the reply !
I'm not sure yet whether this is what I want or not...

from one point - that seems a bit too much as in my world there are supposed to be relatively calm sub-equatorial and tropical waters for marine nomad cultures to prosper...
[however, IRL Moken "sea gypsies" habit the Andaman sea area which is notorious for the most destructive hurricanes in the world, so that seems not to be critical]

from another - I wanted to have some catastrophic floods in particular regions, too, and you great red spot-like megahurricane idea seems to be a good way to organize that...
such megahurricane, even if not permanent but lasting for several decades, can have a major impact on the civilization, an just in the way I want for the setting

...but anyway you gave me some very interesting directions for further research on the subject

[Carl]

Your welcome, and yeah, to get calm waters you need a stable year round temperature with enough land to break up the monster storms. You can't really have stable tropical conditions and no landmass's there. That said a nomadic civilization out on the open ocean would have real issues finding ways of keeping it's "ship houses" maintained, they'd need some form of sheltered anchorage to put into for repairs and whilst you can create artificial one's given enough effort, they aren't something a nomadic society would be able to do. You'd be fine if their where periods of calm, just not if it's constant battering sea's, which it largely would be with no major landmass's.

[D2R]

...by the way - looking at the hurricane basins map -

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- I noticed that there is no hurricane basin in the Southern Atlantic, to the east from South America.

Wikipedia tells that

South Atlantic tropical cyclones are unusual weather events ... strong wind shear (which disrupts cyclone formation) and a lack of weather disturbances favorable for tropical cyclone development make any hurricane-strength cyclones extremely rare

And strong wind shear in this area seems to be a direct result of lack of land in the Southern Hemisphere.

So, it seems, strong winds do not let cyclones to be formed ? And there would be no or very few tropical hurricanes in a world without much land along the equator, because they would be literally blown off by strong trade winds before being completely formed ?

[Carl]

Bear in mind that earths wind flows are heavily influenced by the lands and weather patterns to the north and south as well as east and west. It's certainly possible certain patterns of land and sea could preclude hurricanes on your world, but i wouldn't bet on it. Winds flowing in opposite directions play a very strong role in hurricane formation and a landless equator would be perfect for that as wind north of the equator flow the opposite way from lands south thereof. But those patterns are affected by a lot of factors.

I'd have to look into it as it's a while since i recall hearing it, but i believe the south american mountain chains disrupt the flow over them effectively placing the entire ocean on their sidea behind a windbreak, (land normally slows the winds down, but doesn't usually stop it short of mountain's), and this creates a lack of winds in one direction which affects things. Also a bit of quick research brings up the humboldt current as causing a sharp drop in sea temperatures of western south America, which would also affect things since that effectively kills the heating effect which drives storms on that side and there's a similar current off the African coast as i recall. It's certainly responsible for the deserts on the western side of the Andes.

Need to do more research, but basically don't write it off as a normal part of the situation, if it was you'd never get hurricanes at all because the trade wind's are everywhere they're not blocked by mountains. Certainly the trade winds probably are the cause here, but there's a reason they have that effect here and not elsewhere and it's important to understand why. I just can't remember the specifics off the top of my head with any degree of confidence, I've heard various stuff at various times on the odd climate there but i'm having trouble finding anything detailed on it.

[D2R]

That said a nomadic civilization out on the open ocean would have real issues finding ways of keeping it's "ship houses" maintained, they'd need some form of sheltered anchorage to put into for repairs and whilst you can create artificial one's given enough effort, they aren't something a nomadic society would be able to do. You'd be fine if their where periods of calm, just not if it's constant battering sea's, which it largely would be with no major landmass's.

Well I imagined it more as a shallow-water region with a lot of small islands covered with evergreen forests (too small to support agricultural communities) and coral reefs - much like the Aegean sea or the Mergui Archipelago where the Moken "sea gypsies" actually live, but much larger in area. In vicinity from the continental landmass, most likely - along its coastline, so that the nomads could play the same role as the Central Asian steppe nomads in the history of Eurasia - transmitters of technologies and ideas from East to West and vice versa, powerful foes or allies of sedentary civilizations playing a major geopolitical role, inventors of many military technologies and tactics. In no case I'm going to place the boat-dwelling nomads into open sea without any possibilities to maintain or renovate their fleets.

Colonies (mostly resource-developing or food-producing) in open sea in this world are supposed to be a product of industrial development of sedentary civilizations, who once derived advanced sailing and navigating technologies from the nomads just as the Europeans inherited armored cavalry from the nomads of the steppes. And that happends in the Age of Steam, of course, with sufficiently advanced technologies such as steel/concrete shipbuilding and advanced navigational equipment including mechanical computers and "wireless telegraph".

All in all, I would be pretty happy with Earth-like hurricanes, or even somewhat more severe - I just need the above-mentioned relatively safe water area where the nomadic civilization could develop, it pretty much can be shielded from the most severe storms by a landmass. And the landmass may and actually *should* be subject to periodic hurricanes and flooding. So far I've sticked to the Netherlands model, with a very low territory and rising sea, but tropical hurricanes can work even better, especially combined with the former factor.

[Carl]

Shallow water area's would have a huge effect on currents and you'd almost certainly see up-welling around them that would produce disruptive currents that would disrupt storm formation. They're a big affector as my last post pointed out. So potentially they'd have a huge affect on storm formation creating clear area's where they're cold water flow disrupts traditional solar heating effects. It's uniform heating that could create true monster storm conditions. This is what Jupiter experiences (albeit from internal rather than external heat sources), and results in it's incredibly active hurricane system. Though even it gets some up-welling producing relative dry spots for them.

I was thinking entirely in terms of deep ocean when your first asked. Sharp changes in ocean depths and the affect that has on currents would greatly change things. You'd still see much more intense storms when they occurred, but they wouldn't be nigh constant.

[D2R]

Yeah, I see there is some misunderstanding, and I'm mostly the one to blame. Now I'm stating it clearly that we're dealing with one HUGE (~85 million sq. kms, that's roughly Eurasia, North America and Australia combined) continent (THE Continent here, as there is few landmass other than this in the world), with it's core landmass around a pole (Northern or Southern - that does not matter) and it's "appendages" reaching as far as 20...15 degrees latitude. It is divided into the "core" landmass, the "appendages" and the Subcontinent, which is partly wrapped by one of the appendages, and there are many small islands in the strait between them which is roughly 1000 kms wide. The continental landmass is not one peace, there are many epicontinental (inland) seas, much like the Mesozoic or early Carboniferous Earth continents.

Something like that

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- but without / with smaller Lavrussia and multiple islands between it and the main continent

Now I'm struggling to shape this Continent to give its parts the properties I need. And what I want is mostly uninhabitable core landmass in 60+ latitude, and comfortable, but relatively overpopulated temperate to tropical areas, some of which is subject to periodic flooding at the shoreline.

[Citrakayah]

Anthropology question!

What are/were the different regions in North America called by Native Americans? For instance, did the Hopi have a specific name for the southwestern region?

[Ninjadeadbeard]

My question is two-fold: Is the following map accurate as far as climate goes? (I am friends with sticklers )

And, Would the map be improved/better/more interesting if the lower two continents were merged?

Spoiler: Map

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[Yora]

The deserts don't seem to make much sense. Generally you get deserts to the east or the west of mountains, depending on what direction the winds blow. If you'd move one of the mountain ranges on the northern continent to the west coast, you'd have a configuration like the Rocky Mountains, justifying the desert. The eastern part of the desert seems to be in a similar location like Texas, and even though I don't know why Texas is dry, it's obviously a situation that does happen in real life, so it works.

On the south-central continent, it would probably be more plausible if the desert runs north-south along the mountains, instead of east-west.

On the small eastern continent, I'd switch the desert and the jungle around, unless on your planet the wind patterns move in the opposite direction as they do on earth. Or just remove the desert entirely. If you want to keep the desert, add another mountain range along the coast and make the desert an elevated plateau, that would also work.

I'd personally move the two southern continents around a bit, because now the seas that separate the three continents seem to be of almost the same uniform width, which does stand out as looking a bit artificial. Moving the western one a bit more to the west and the eastern one a bit to the south for example, should take care of that.