For altitude, there’s a basic method you can use: For every one kilometre you go up, you extend a climate sone down ten degrees. For example, if you have a large area of land 2 kilometres above sea level at 40 degrees north, you make the climates as if it was at 60 degrees north.
Tropics generally need 180 meters per degree C, so one kilometer will be like 6 °C. And while temperatures decrease, seasonality stays the same as sea level but with greater diurnal temperature range, so it doesn't really become like a higher latitude climate.
@@elijahlay5860the highest elevation on earth peaks at just below 9 km. If you're fantasy world has Mountains as tall as 100km you probably didn't try to make it very realistic in the first place
@@b.k.5667yeah and even the tallest mountain on mars is just 24 kilometers high, sure maybe they could get higher, but I’m not a geologist and I’m working off the limited knowledge of a quick google search
Ever look at a really old map of Earth? Like from antiquity or the middle ages. If you have you probably noticed it didn't look much like Earth. So if you made a map and it turns out some of it doesn't make sense, just chalk it up to that. It's an old map made by cartographers who had a flawed understanding of their world. No need to sweat or scrap your progress.
The UK casts a shadow on Norway: the Gulf Stream keeps northern Norway warm, but the UK blocks it from southern Norway, so the south of Norway can be colder than the north.
Most of it is actually caused by the Scandinavian Mountains (Oslo is often colder than Nordland in the winter) but there is a bit of influence from the UK as well which is why Bergen and Alesund are typically milder in the winter than Kristiansand and most cities in Denmark. They are also shielded from Siberian air masses by the mountains as well while places to the south do not have such a privilege
@@bruhguy2356 Nope. Not only is the English Channel not really deep nor wide enough to be able to channel a strong current like that, but it's also the wrong end of the British Isles. The general path of Gulf Stream goes to the north of Scotland, between it and Iceland then curves around into the North Sea alongside Norway.
Plus if two heads are better than one, three videos are definitely better than one. If he said we had to wait for part 6 I'd be jumping up and down out of joy.
Same. I'm in the middle of making a map for my D&D world going forward, and was thinking how great it would be to have more actual video explanations about the climate and water/air currents and so on. Plenty of articles cover the geological features and how that effects water flow for rivers / pooling for lakes and so on, but much less on how the climate and biomes would form naturally. And Artifexian's earlier videos on the wind circulation and ocean currents came to mind, but this one (actual climates based on that) hadn't been made and released yet. So this gets me halfway to determining kinds of volumes of vegetation for my map-in-progress. Perfect timing.
I believe it's the same, but I'm not quite sure, the name is different so it should have different meaning... I know! there is only one thing to do! TIME FOR MORE SCIENISSECINGIFFICALALALUCATION
There is (or was?) a mod, "Realistic World Gen" or something like that, that attempted to incorporate things like climate bands into the procedural world generation.
That actually gave me the idea to create random worlds and using the maps for the sole purpose of using them for worldbuilding. Probably not the most original idea ever but it beats trying to conceptualize a world without any artistic skill under my belt.
I bashed my head into my desk trying to figure this stuff out a few months ago (figuratively). This is so helpful! Thanks! This is my favorite world building related channel by far.
Okay, this is great, but can someone tell me how do I apply this with different planetary parameters, i.e. stellar day above or below 24 hours, surface gravity above or below 1 g, different stellar irradiance, stronger or weaker tidal forces, atmospheric pressure above or below 1 atm, axial tilt above or below 23.3 degrees, different planet size, semi-major axis above or below 1 AU, different atmospheric composition than the standard 78% N2, 21% O2... Edit: Nevermind, he actually did it. God, this channel is a godsend.
Yay! Another worldbuilding video! The fact that the dry/wet flip flops like that due to the wind direction in South America after such a small distance is really interesting.
Nice to see how the previous videos tie into the climate zones akin to how star types and orbital radii determines the type of planets at the start of the process. Also appreciate the nuance of what would have been otherwise an over application of the brush tool, it certainly does give it an air of plausibility, mask layers as well? Can barely wait for the temperate and colder regions videos. Thanks again for the video.
5:53 that wouldn't be a desert fully even with the rainshadow, due to the movement of the Doldrums over the year. In the northern summer, so for part of the year that desert would be on the windward side. I would suggest it being a steppe, with some subtropical highland regions.
This is exactly what I needed! I'm excited for the next one. I want to wait until this next one to create a new world map for my story because I feel like it'll be a really fun couple of days to just go through and do it all at once.
OMG exactly what i needed! been thinking about this for weeks now! have put it off for more than 2 months! Finally i have a guideline for this and can finish my worldbuilding >.< Thank you so so much!
this is the best way to actually learn geography cuz you introduce the concept and principles and then apply them back at earth, instead of explaining each part of earth
Your map has too much savanna and too little desert given the location of your mountains. Instead of a huge inland savanna I suggest mixing strips of savanna in a mostly desert in that area. Savanna in areas where valleys are allowing clouds to pass through the mountains or where the mountains are lower. Because quite frankly even low mountains will dry out the air quite a lot. Not just due to a wind shadow causing less rain to fall in the first place but also due to foehn winds picking up and carrying away the little water there is there whenever there's winds blowing over the mountains. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foehn_wind As a result those areas would be deserts despite being located in an area that would otherwise be a rain forest. After all, in the real world the rain forest is there because it's so hot that local air rises causing rain as it rises up while pulling cold air from north and south of there where the above mentioned dry air is falling towards the surface pushing away any moist air that may otherwise have reached the area. In your map there's no sea north of your savanna for moisture to be pulled away from in order to create the rain at equator. The area would simply be dry despite the lake you've placed at 30° where the dry air is falling. Honestly, Pangea and other super continents like that are a better model for your world then our current one is in terms of understanding the climate that your geographic features are actually causing... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Earth_Global_Circulation_-_en.svg
@@user-jr7ww2gf1h Super-continents tends to be rather dry in the middle... Asia is small compared to a *real* super continent. Anyway, the effect you kind of get with mountains is something like Tibet or Australia. And with a large continent there's usually *something* stopping the water from getting through the whole thing to the middle.
This is pretty close to how i already do biomes which was cool to note - Though it did go in way more detail. I'd love to know how you marked out your regions (i assume you used photoshop) as statistically it lools pretty cool. I'm looking forward yo the next video keep it up!
Watching the three previous videos and this one makes me think I could much more easily make a very believable world. I never want to start building a civilization because I could never know the world that they would be a product. Because of these videos I can start making a map and referring back to these. You aren’t telling me what to put in my world, your telling me how to discover what is in my world. Thank you
Great video. I studied some climate and geology in college as electives and what you said here is generally pretty accurate. One thing you may want to correct though, is saying inland areas will always be hot and dry. You got the dry part right, but hot, not so much. Try telling the people of Winnipeg, Manitoba or Yellowknife, NWT that their cities are always "hot" year round while they're in the middle of -30C winters! A more accurate statement would be interiors of continents have more extreme temperatures then coastal regions. They tend to get both hotter AND colder then coasts, while costs tend to remain more consistent and mild in their temperatures.
Are you gonna include the full technical definitions of each of these climate zones in the documents? Cos those would probably be useful. Especially if you wanna tweak the planetary temperature or precipitation off of current earth standards. For example you’d be surprised how much smaller the tropical zones would be on a world with temperatures similar to those of the last ice age. I can make that map for you if you’d like just for a demonstration. And going in the opposite direction, a hothouse world could see the tropical zones extend far outside the Hadley Cell
Edgar might not be able to include such wondrous additions in his current production s schedule, but I am sure.there are.many of us that would greatly appreciate your contributions to world building!
No. But a lot of this will be covered in the third video in this series. You seem to have researched this, if you're willing DM me on twitter, I'd love to get a look at some of your work.
Also a hothouse world would potentially lack the polar tundra climate zones Earth has with at least temperate zones being likely to extend right to the polar regions, similarly the transition to alpine climate zones at any given latitude be at higher elevations than on Earth assuming that is the world has a similar atmospheric composition. This is both due to the higher sea level temperatures at each latitude and due to the fact that a hothouse world would also be more humid and the temperature lapse rate with altitude decreases once the ambient temperature falls bellow the dew point due to the release of the latent heat of vaporisation as the water vapour begins to condense.
An Artifexian video the same day as WorldBuilding Notes? Awesome! I really need to work on my current world some more, I'm building it's map based on interactions between nations and events. Also the type of areas I want people to live, Region by region.
The elevation for mountains should be a little bit higher than 800 m at a base. After looking at various elevation maps, 1200-1500 is a decent range to aim for. I think with your map though, your elevation is just a little too minimal from the start, leaving your mountains a bit stunted in comparison to earth's (not sure if that was on purpose to be honest -- it wasn't mentioned in the tectonics video). For scale, the rocky mountains, which are pretty average as far as mountain range heights go, consistently have peaks above 2500m, with their bases starting around 1300m, give or take 200m for regional variation.
How did you make this waaay better topographic map? It is really cool and this looks way better than the one you made in the original video about plate tectonics. It looks like you did it with vector graphics.
Deciding the actual extents/shapes of my climates is the hardest part of conworlding. Especially when all my coastlines are fractalized. Will you ever do a video on deciding where civilization borders should be, especially for mountain dwelling people?
I can help, if you want. I have spent quite a lot of time researching for worldbuilding, including studying geology and climatology, and I’m an history amateur.
Danquebec01 hah hah thanks, though I have to re-add my mountains again (since I lost my usb containing my latest map) before I do anything like that yet.
It adds a lot. For instance without the Monsoons that feed the Nile River ancient Egypt wouldn't have developed. And if it wasn't so surrounded by desert, a result of climate, it's history would probably be more like the Mesopotamia's marked with frequent outside invasions. In many ways societies our shaped by their environment including climate.
I and my best friend have a years long between us world build that has been incorporating a lot of this stuff. Despite most of the map stuff having already been set down I still managed to follow geographical climates due to a geology minor in college. A fun thing to look at is soil types based on the local rocks and features, it'll influence crops, plant life, types of animals and culture, also a lot of trade routes in relation to ores, dirts, and precious stones. Soil PH and nutrient content has a lot of effect on farming techniques in any given area, just as much as access to water. (I'll reference the meme about a delicate rose vs a dandelion yelling at it about growing in a crack in the ground, I live in a region where roses are nearly weeds due to having the right soil composition for them, I had no concept of roses being delicate growing up due to the fact that the ones around my house are ~10x the size they should be and unkillable, while over in Europe they're happy to grow but the soil has different nutrients and thus they can be killed)We argue all the time over minute details but generally if @Artifexian has a vid out on the topic we will defer to it and side that direction. It's kept a lot of things in our relationship from blowing up spectacularly.
I don't understand how the savannas at 6:00 behind the rain shadows won't be a desert. Do enough rain make it over the mountains to make such a biome viable?
I have an idea for cultures based on these geographic regions: Central Rain Forest: A boat-based culture, with the local ethnicity being mostly short, dark and of average built. Despite regional differences, the unified climate stretching quite widely and relatively flat terrain allows for easy mixing. Mostly tribal communities with a wide array of cuisines, comprised mainly of fruits, mushrooms and edible insects, with a wide variety of spices and fermentation techniques, allowing for foods that are fruity, sweet, often spicy, or mild and gently-flavored. In certain lakes, a spirulina or spirulina analog is often cultivated, and is priced more than gold, as well as many cotton cultivars, choosing for longer, softer fibers of various yellows and greens, on the lighter side of course, and even some analogues to banana fibers, dyed many vibrant colors. They strongly appreciate a good deal of heat. They mostly access salt from trade, and it has resulted in them becoming diplomatically advanced, as it becomes an increasing necessety in their hot and wet environment. Coastal Rainforest: Smaller tribes, mostly nomadic as opposed to their sedentary more "mainland" cousins, mostly live in a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, and mostly peaceful, since of their ability to trade for valuable ressources of salt and spices. Coconut, crabs and fish allow for a proteine rich-diet, and they tend to use dried grasses as opposed to more complexe cloths. Coral reafs allow for a wide array of fish, seashells and crustacians. Tend to be more isolated, but not quite as much. Peninsula Rainforest: Mostly houses a sea-faring culture, used to a rich diet of fish, seafood and coconut, as well as many fruits and berries. Well-versed in agriculture, fishing, war and trade, they have come to dominate the area, and perhaps, are looking for expension. They tend to cultivate shorter kinds of cotton with white fibers, but trade with other cultures for silks and dyes. Their tropical rainforest climate and their trading culture allows them to mix a wide variety of spices, locally enjoying extremely spicy foods. Eastern Island: A small, isolated hunter-gatherer society, often invaded by other cultures. They enjoy there access to salt, spices, seafood, fish and fruits, though, and have a unique cuisine with an emphasis on stews served with flavorful salty-fruity condiments. They do not particularly enjoy spices, though. Monsoon forests: Too small and thin to have any significant self-contained culture, they tend to form regional variets withing larger cultures, exept the most extreme estern one, fairly isolated, enjoying closeness to the sea and mountains, allowing for plenty of fresh water, sea-salt, fruits (coconuts, mangos and citruses being favorites), spices and both cotton and linen cloth productions. Dairy, which allow for small-scale of various peas and beans, dairy is quite frequently consumed, but beef is taboo. and the wet climate with it's abundonce of disease carrying insects make it difficult to slaughter and eat large animals in general. Savannah near the large river: Mostly houses the main tropical civilisation. A deeply unegaletarian irrigation society, stretching throught the Savannah, but also steppes and desert, they consider themselves the pride of the region. The inhabitants of these lands tend to be very dark, tall and slender-boned. Cultivation of emmer, peas, gathering of salt in the desert, and raising of cattle allow for a healthy diet. Most fruits include dates, figs, barbary berries and smaller citruses. The upmost town control trade with the peoples of more moderate regions. Open Savannah: Semi-nomadic or nomadic tribes roaming the land looking for grazing for their cattles, or prey to hunt. The lack of a stable water source make sedentariasation extremely difficult, if not impossible. Savannah Island, central: Isolated, yet close to the continent, mostly lives a sea-farring lifestyle, mostly hunter-gatherers. Fruits and nuts make the rest of the diet, as well as many small bird species, larger and meatier thanks to insular gigantism, allow them to practice some raising of cattle in the form of tropical, oversized pigeons. South-Western and Coast Peninsula Savannah: While still open, the nearby sea and mountains allow for a beginning of horticulture, and cold costal waters allow for abundant fisheries. These almost settled cultures, with a very reduced nomadism and beginings of horticulture. Highly interconnected with the small, central island, itself a popular destination of the River People. North-Eastern Peninsula Savannah: more geographically isolated and has exeptionally low population density due to a lack of food source. Mostly wild, and with some isolated societies of hunter-gatherers, surviving of meat and grain, with occasional roots. South-Eastern Island: Mostly sea-farring, nomadic, but with the begginings of raising of cattle, mostly birds raised for meat. Fish play a large part of their diet as well. Eastern Steppes: Mostly coastal population living off fishing, raising cattles such as short-haired sheep and bovins and emmer cultivation, but frequently revert to nomadism due to frequent droughts. They often ressort to trade with other cultures, in hopes of getting additionnal food sources. The mountains allow for a greater supply of fresh water. Most vitamins come from algea or mountain berries. Deserts: Mostly dominated by camel-mounted traders and merchants, but also "sand-pirates". No settled population, exept maybe in the rarest of oasis.
Do you think this could be implemented as an algorithm. It looks sufficiently deterministic to me for now. Maybe one can throw a world map with elevation data, ocean currents and wind patterns and the program would tell you the different regions in the Köppen climate classification. Cuold that be possible? If so, it would be very interesting to do paleoclimate models with that and comparing it the the actual ones. Should we expect it to be similar? Fascinating video by the way. I love your presentation style and appreciate the hard work.
As always, an excellent video. I think you quite spoil us, and on that note: When you're done with climate do you think you'll touch on biomes? If you do I hope you redo vegetation. It was a good video, the one you already made, but I found it a bit lacking. Again, loved the video, keep up the good work.
0:53 Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't the polar highs particularly dry areas as well? I mean, barely any precipitation falls inside the Antarctic continent surrounding the South Pole or inside Greenland on the ice sheet.
@@yoironfistbro8128 Further proving this, if you look at the weather for the South Pole, the relative humidity remains consistently well below 30%, including during the Winter in temperatures below -60°C.
I created a sort of desert monsoon effect on my world. The equatorial/south tropical desert called the Malanash by the Felines heats up, and the winds blow towards the cool mountains inhabited by Felin Cotrunikh. During the Mountain winter, winds blow towards the range more, and during summer the winds follow a general prevailing wind pattern (towards the spiraltail lands on the equator). During the winter monsoons, red sand particles get blown through the air, making the sky a reddish-orange, thought to be the mark of the sun God’s distance, as it is similarly colored to a sunset.
That sounds like a really cool setup. I dig the cultural stuff you have created based on the geography. But the existence of tropical desert seems weird to me. Deserts will tend to be located right under high pressure zones like subtropical ridges not at the equator. Even if you have a convenient mountain range near the equator, it's rainshadow may be dry enough to have savannah but not so dry to allow for equatorial deserts. Thinking about it as I write, you might be able to get away with an elevated plateau (drier conditions up high) that is the rain show of a large mountain range. If that makes sense. Don't know for sure if that would work but might be worth looking into.
Artifexian I realize now that it is near a high pressure band (it stretches from the equator to around 40° south in a supercontinent interior) and a rise near a Rift Valley. I’m glad you like my culture too! All this is making me want to show you where the desert is too. I just realized you have an Instagram can I send you a photo of the map?
0:12 On That Note, Does Anyone Have Sources For Making Climates On A Planet That Doesn't Resemble Earth That Much? (Specifically I'm Looking For Ones For A Warmer, Wetter Planet.)
But wait, doesn't Axial tilt matter regarding to climate eras? Like if I have 30 degrees world, do I still place deserts between 15-30 degrees or do I extend them further North?
I curios as to why you didn't include the wet parts of the mountains slopes. Elevation is generally a good indicator of precipitation (if it is on the prevailing side) and while.you did talk about rainshadow you didn't apply the converse part of its effect, namely a wetter side on the mountains. Further 800m? That is really low, especially for the tropics.
Gotta love when Mushoku Tensei's author had to canonically state in story that: "no, the climate doesn't make sense, its probably magic" 20 volumes in.
Well, they're usually pretty warm because of the sun.... regardless of how cold the ocean is XD But you probably wouldn't get many places that go from 40 degrees celcius to -30 at a beach, compared to inland. But they probably do exist, yeah
Step 1: Make a Desert Planet
Step 2: Summon the Worm
Step 3: ???
Step 4: RIDE THE WORM!
SPICE MUST FLOW
Step three is give him beans
*Rise of the Harkonnen OST starts to play in the background**
Never doubt the worm
Thank you
For altitude, there’s a basic method you can use: For every one kilometre you go up, you extend a climate sone down ten degrees. For example, if you have a large area of land 2 kilometres above sea level at 40 degrees north, you make the climates as if it was at 60 degrees north.
Tropics generally need 180 meters per degree C, so one kilometer will be like 6 °C.
And while temperatures decrease, seasonality stays the same as sea level but with greater diurnal temperature range, so it doesn't really become like a higher latitude climate.
what if you're 100km above sea level 🤣
then your mountain would not exist? it would be crushed under its own weight@@elijahlay5860
@@elijahlay5860the highest elevation on earth peaks at just below 9 km. If you're fantasy world has Mountains as tall as 100km you probably didn't try to make it very realistic in the first place
@@b.k.5667yeah and even the tallest mountain on mars is just 24 kilometers high, sure maybe they could get higher, but I’m not a geologist and I’m working off the limited knowledge of a quick google search
Artifexian: releases new video
Me: opens worldbuilding maps and sweats
When you've already planned land features for certain areas but then you find out it's probably improbable
Ever look at a really old map of Earth? Like from antiquity or the middle ages. If you have you probably noticed it didn't look much like Earth.
So if you made a map and it turns out some of it doesn't make sense, just chalk it up to that. It's an old map made by cartographers who had a flawed understanding of their world. No need to sweat or scrap your progress.
Part 3 is for you..
So basically everyone watching this video right now?
Grim The Ghastly I guess I'm the exception that proves the rule.
The UK casts a shadow on Norway: the Gulf Stream keeps northern Norway warm, but the UK blocks it from southern Norway, so the south of Norway can be colder than the north.
That's really interesting contrary to what I would have assumed. Thanks for the info.
Most of it is actually caused by the Scandinavian Mountains (Oslo is often colder than Nordland in the winter) but there is a bit of influence from the UK as well which is why Bergen and Alesund are typically milder in the winter than Kristiansand and most cities in Denmark. They are also shielded from Siberian air masses by the mountains as well while places to the south do not have such a privilege
Eeehhh... Explain why Bergen and Stavanger and such rarely get snow, then
Doesn’t the gulf stream go through the english channel and upwards to the Norwegian Sea?
@@bruhguy2356 Nope. Not only is the English Channel not really deep nor wide enough to be able to channel a strong current like that, but it's also the wrong end of the British Isles. The general path of Gulf Stream goes to the north of Scotland, between it and Iceland then curves around into the North Sea alongside Norway.
How dare you make a video this great and then make me wait for a part 2. Who even gave you the right to make this kinda content?
ArkaneEmerald, me, now shut up and let him give you free naledge
Oof
Technically, I'm making you wait for a part three :P Seriously though three shorter videos a better for my mental well being than one mega video.
Artifexian makes sense
Plus if two heads are better than one, three videos are definitely better than one.
If he said we had to wait for part 6 I'd be jumping up and down out of joy.
Marker(s) for myself:
Precipitation and temperature: 1:18
Rainforests: 3:00
Savannah: 4:35
Desert: 5:26
Steppe: 6:22
Monsoon: 6:42
When putting it like that, there are a lot more climates talked about in this specific video than I thought.
I literally thought to myself last night how helpful a video like this would be. Awesome.
Same. I'm in the middle of making a map for my D&D world going forward, and was thinking how great it would be to have more actual video explanations about the climate and water/air currents and so on. Plenty of articles cover the geological features and how that effects water flow for rivers / pooling for lakes and so on, but much less on how the climate and biomes would form naturally.
And Artifexian's earlier videos on the wind circulation and ocean currents came to mind, but this one (actual climates based on that) hadn't been made and released yet. So this gets me halfway to determining kinds of volumes of vegetation for my map-in-progress. Perfect timing.
Thank you! I waited so long for this
Thanks for hanging in there.
Ditto.
Second that! Can't wait for part two!
Let's gooo, I've been waiting for this every goddamn day, I'm so glad it's finally here!
Hope you enjoyed it.
yo kobo
wassup screamy boy
What is this "description" you speak of? Is it similar to a doobly-doo?
I believe it's the same, but I'm not quite sure, the name is different so it should have different meaning... I know! there is only one thing to do! TIME FOR MORE SCIENISSECINGIFFICALALALUCATION
ROFL
Most likely
Im making a conlang and this channel has helped so much, I just subbed. Keep up the great work!
Best of luck with your conlang.
lol for some reason I couldn't stop thinking about this as a Minecraft world
There is (or was?) a mod, "Realistic World Gen" or something like that, that attempted to incorporate things like climate bands into the procedural world generation.
@@impiaaa TerraFirmaCraft at least varies temperature by distance from the equator.
@@entropyzero5588 sadly TFC is no longer getting updates. it was so great.
@@impiaaa did it acomplish that?
That actually gave me the idea to create random worlds and using the maps for the sole purpose of using them for worldbuilding. Probably not the most original idea ever but it beats trying to conceptualize a world without any artistic skill under my belt.
I bashed my head into my desk trying to figure this stuff out a few months ago (figuratively). This is so helpful! Thanks!
This is my favorite world building related channel by far.
Aw, cheers pal.
Okay, this is great, but can someone tell me how do I apply this with different planetary parameters, i.e. stellar day above or below 24 hours, surface gravity above or below 1 g, different stellar irradiance, stronger or weaker tidal forces, atmospheric pressure above or below 1 atm, axial tilt above or below 23.3 degrees, different planet size, semi-major axis above or below 1 AU, different atmospheric composition than the standard 78% N2, 21% O2...
Edit: Nevermind, he actually did it. God, this channel is a godsend.
In which video did he do this? I am looking for it for some time now... Thanks!
@@donmeles7711 Part 3 of this series I believe
Artifexian proving once again just exactly why he's the best channel on this whole dang website
After months of patiently waiting for this, it's finally here! Thank you!
I keep on re-doing my map, so I have to re-do all my biomes. Your awesome accent and explaining makes it all worth it. Thanks, Artefexian
Yay! Another worldbuilding video!
The fact that the dry/wet flip flops like that due to the wind direction in South America after such a small distance is really interesting.
Ye, it's really visually striking. North-south mountain ranges can produce really cool results.
yeet
I’d imagine that if you build a long railway or road along the summits, you can watch the rainforest shift from one side to the other.
A new worldbuilding video was a good 20th birthday present.
its been up for 3 days and I'm already so sad part 2 isn't here... this is the best video
No one:
Me when Artifexian uploads:
:O
:)
Nice to see how the previous videos tie into the climate zones akin to how star types and orbital radii determines the type of planets at the start of the process. Also appreciate the nuance of what would have been otherwise an over application of the brush tool, it certainly does give it an air of plausibility, mask layers as well?
Can barely wait for the temperate and colder regions videos. Thanks again for the video.
5:53 that wouldn't be a desert fully even with the rainshadow, due to the movement of the Doldrums over the year. In the northern summer, so for part of the year that desert would be on the windward side. I would suggest it being a steppe, with some subtropical highland regions.
I've wanted this for so long, thank you!!
Thank you for watching.
I have been waiting YEARS for this.
This is exactly what I needed! I'm excited for the next one. I want to wait until this next one to create a new world map for my story because I feel like it'll be a really fun couple of days to just go through and do it all at once.
OMG exactly what i needed! been thinking about this for weeks now! have put it off for more than 2 months! Finally i have a guideline for this and can finish my worldbuilding >.< Thank you so so much!
It makes my day so much better when you post 😋
Funny, I was just thinking about developing this in my world
Perfect timing.
this is the best way to actually learn geography cuz you introduce the concept and principles and then apply them back at earth, instead of explaining each part of earth
This channel is seriously underrated.
I can't believe the video I just watched is already over. I want more...
Honestly, an underrated series. Good job explaining + visuals :)
WOAH just noticed this is your 100th video! Congrats!
Right when I needed it this video finally came out
Your map has too much savanna and too little desert given the location of your mountains.
Instead of a huge inland savanna I suggest mixing strips of savanna in a mostly desert in that area.
Savanna in areas where valleys are allowing clouds to pass through the mountains or where the mountains are lower.
Because quite frankly even low mountains will dry out the air quite a lot.
Not just due to a wind shadow causing less rain to fall in the first place but also due to foehn winds picking up and carrying away the little water there is there whenever there's winds blowing over the mountains.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foehn_wind
As a result those areas would be deserts despite being located in an area that would otherwise be a rain forest.
After all, in the real world the rain forest is there because it's so hot that local air rises causing rain as it rises up while pulling cold air from north and south of there where the above mentioned dry air is falling towards the surface pushing away any moist air that may otherwise have reached the area.
In your map there's no sea north of your savanna for moisture to be pulled away from in order to create the rain at equator.
The area would simply be dry despite the lake you've placed at 30° where the dry air is falling.
Honestly, Pangea and other super continents like that are a better model for your world then our current one is in terms of understanding the climate that your geographic features are actually causing...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Earth_Global_Circulation_-_en.svg
Luredreier that’s super interesting. My world is currently in a supercontinent and I have been modeling its climate off of Asia
@@user-jr7ww2gf1h Super-continents tends to be rather dry in the middle...
Asia is small compared to a *real* super continent.
Anyway, the effect you kind of get with mountains is something like Tibet or Australia.
And with a large continent there's usually *something* stopping the water from getting through the whole thing to the middle.
This is pretty close to how i already do biomes which was cool to note - Though it did go in way more detail. I'd love to know how you marked out your regions (i assume you used photoshop) as statistically it lools pretty cool. I'm looking forward yo the next video keep it up!
Yup, all of my maps are created in photoshop.
This is the second time you’ve uploaded a video I needed the day I decide to work on the next part of my world map... thanks!
This will be incredibly helpful once I decide to sit down and re-design my world more seriously, thanks!
Watching the three previous videos and this one makes me think I could much more easily make a very believable world. I never want to start building a civilization because I could never know the world that they would be a product. Because of these videos I can start making a map and referring back to these. You aren’t telling me what to put in my world, your telling me how to discover what is in my world. Thank you
Waiting for part two! This was very useful, like all the other videos in this series
Edgar looks so good. 10/10 man right there
Really happy I finally watched this. Bout to hit up the entire series. This is helping immensely.
Total aside, but dude, you're looking good! That beard and haircut are really working for you.
You blew my MIND with that image of South America's mountainous regions. I had never heard of Orthographic Lift!
Great video. I studied some climate and geology in college as electives and what you said here is generally pretty accurate. One thing you may want to correct though, is saying inland areas will always be hot and dry. You got the dry part right, but hot, not so much. Try telling the people of Winnipeg, Manitoba or Yellowknife, NWT that their cities are always "hot" year round while they're in the middle of -30C winters! A more accurate statement would be interiors of continents have more extreme temperatures then coastal regions. They tend to get both hotter AND colder then coasts, while costs tend to remain more consistent and mild in their temperatures.
You are awesome, I find your videos to be some of the most interesting on UA-cam, or anywhere tbh
I've being looking for this for almost a decade
Brand new worldbuilding from Artifexian? Heck yes please!
YEEEAH! LET'S WORLD BUILD!
Awesome. I've been doing this intuitively for years and gotten pretty far, but it's great to have a real guide out there.
Are you gonna include the full technical definitions of each of these climate zones in the documents? Cos those would probably be useful. Especially if you wanna tweak the planetary temperature or precipitation off of current earth standards. For example you’d be surprised how much smaller the tropical zones would be on a world with temperatures similar to those of the last ice age. I can make that map for you if you’d like just for a demonstration. And going in the opposite direction, a hothouse world could see the tropical zones extend far outside the Hadley Cell
Edgar might not be able to include such wondrous additions in his current production s schedule, but I am sure.there are.many of us that would greatly appreciate your contributions to world building!
@@jeffstormer2547 Of course. And if he needs them, I can gladly copy them into the document.
No. But a lot of this will be covered in the third video in this series. You seem to have researched this, if you're willing DM me on twitter, I'd love to get a look at some of your work.
Also a hothouse world would potentially lack the polar tundra climate zones Earth has with at least temperate zones being likely to extend right to the polar regions, similarly the transition to alpine climate zones at any given latitude be at higher elevations than on Earth assuming that is the world has a similar atmospheric composition. This is both due to the higher sea level temperatures at each latitude and due to the fact that a hothouse world would also be more humid and the temperature lapse rate with altitude decreases once the ambient temperature falls bellow the dew point due to the release of the latent heat of vaporisation as the water vapour begins to condense.
He mentioned names of stuff; a little Google Fu should find you temp and precipitation tables for these climate zones
An Artifexian video the same day as WorldBuilding Notes? Awesome!
I really need to work on my current world some more, I'm building it's map based on interactions between nations and events. Also the type of areas I want people to live, Region by region.
This helped me reaffirm my climate zones I made too, that I did from earth science and your currents video.
Cool!
Hoping to run a "realistic" high fantasy campaign for Pathfinder and using these videos for inspiration! Thank you for uploading, was a lot of help!
The elevation for mountains should be a little bit higher than 800 m at a base. After looking at various elevation maps, 1200-1500 is a decent range to aim for. I think with your map though, your elevation is just a little too minimal from the start, leaving your mountains a bit stunted in comparison to earth's (not sure if that was on purpose to be honest -- it wasn't mentioned in the tectonics video).
For scale, the rocky mountains, which are pretty average as far as mountain range heights go, consistently have peaks above 2500m, with their bases starting around 1300m, give or take 200m for regional variation.
How did you make this waaay better topographic map? It is really cool and this looks way better than the one you made in the original video about plate tectonics. It looks like you did it with vector graphics.
Homunkolus I’m commenting because I want to know too
Love this. Have been waiting for something like this since I started watching your videos a bit under a year ago!
Thanks a lot for this great video! Very useful material. Looking forward to the next one.
UA-cam gods, please recommend me more of this kind of stuff.
Paldies-thanks from Riga, Latvis!
I HAVE WAITED SO LONG!! Thank you!!!!
Okay I watched plate tectonics, ocean currents, and wind patterns. Now I’m back to watch this video. Thanks for the required ‘reading’ list
Deciding the actual extents/shapes of my climates is the hardest part of conworlding. Especially when all my coastlines are fractalized.
Will you ever do a video on deciding where civilization borders should be, especially for mountain dwelling people?
I can help, if you want. I have spent quite a lot of time researching for worldbuilding, including studying geology and climatology, and I’m an history amateur.
Danquebec01 hah hah thanks, though I have to re-add my mountains again (since I lost my usb containing my latest map) before I do anything like that yet.
@@DrPonner Ok contact me at dan que bec 01 @ ya hoo . ca (all written together) if you want help.
2:08 Oh, no. This map reminds me of a certain disputed peninsula.
Oh….I see it now….ooh
i feel so overwhelmed trying to do this. its so complicated
Beaut! This is much better than watching a tax compliance video with dinner.
Haha! I'd say so. :)
Wow, let's not over do it now. When I was ten I audited my parents, let just say there were some discrepencies, and I was grounded for a month.
Very cool had never thought about this element to world crafting- thanks!
It adds a lot. For instance without the Monsoons that feed the Nile River ancient Egypt wouldn't have developed. And if it wasn't so surrounded by desert, a result of climate, it's history would probably be more like the Mesopotamia's marked with frequent outside invasions.
In many ways societies our shaped by their environment including climate.
YES! I've waited so long for this video!
you came back... finally...
I and my best friend have a years long between us world build that has been incorporating a lot of this stuff. Despite most of the map stuff having already been set down I still managed to follow geographical climates due to a geology minor in college. A fun thing to look at is soil types based on the local rocks and features, it'll influence crops, plant life, types of animals and culture, also a lot of trade routes in relation to ores, dirts, and precious stones. Soil PH and nutrient content has a lot of effect on farming techniques in any given area, just as much as access to water. (I'll reference the meme about a delicate rose vs a dandelion yelling at it about growing in a crack in the ground, I live in a region where roses are nearly weeds due to having the right soil composition for them, I had no concept of roses being delicate growing up due to the fact that the ones around my house are ~10x the size they should be and unkillable, while over in Europe they're happy to grow but the soil has different nutrients and thus they can be killed)We argue all the time over minute details but generally if @Artifexian has a vid out on the topic we will defer to it and side that direction. It's kept a lot of things in our relationship from blowing up spectacularly.
Thank you so much for including the link to website, it's amazing
Holy shit this video is so well timed for me. Was just busy figuring out the climates of a new world i'm building
I don't understand how the savannas at 6:00 behind the rain shadows won't be a desert. Do enough rain make it over the mountains to make such a biome viable?
Thank you for making this content
No probs. Thank you for watching.
I have an idea for cultures based on these geographic regions:
Central Rain Forest: A boat-based culture, with the local ethnicity being mostly short, dark and of average built. Despite regional differences, the unified climate stretching quite widely and relatively flat terrain allows for easy mixing. Mostly tribal communities with a wide array of cuisines, comprised mainly of fruits, mushrooms and edible insects, with a wide variety of spices and fermentation techniques, allowing for foods that are fruity, sweet, often spicy, or mild and gently-flavored. In certain lakes, a spirulina or spirulina analog is often cultivated, and is priced more than gold, as well as many cotton cultivars, choosing for longer, softer fibers of various yellows and greens, on the lighter side of course, and even some analogues to banana fibers, dyed many vibrant colors. They strongly appreciate a good deal of heat. They mostly access salt from trade, and it has resulted in them becoming diplomatically advanced, as it becomes an increasing necessety in their hot and wet environment.
Coastal Rainforest: Smaller tribes, mostly nomadic as opposed to their sedentary more "mainland" cousins, mostly live in a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, and mostly peaceful, since of their ability to trade for valuable ressources of salt and spices. Coconut, crabs and fish allow for a proteine rich-diet, and they tend to use dried grasses as opposed to more complexe cloths. Coral reafs allow for a wide array of fish, seashells and crustacians. Tend to be more isolated, but not quite as much.
Peninsula Rainforest: Mostly houses a sea-faring culture, used to a rich diet of fish, seafood and coconut, as well as many fruits and berries. Well-versed in agriculture, fishing, war and trade, they have come to dominate the area, and perhaps, are looking for expension. They tend to cultivate shorter kinds of cotton with white fibers, but trade with other cultures for silks and dyes. Their tropical rainforest climate and their trading culture allows them to mix a wide variety of spices, locally enjoying extremely spicy foods.
Eastern Island: A small, isolated hunter-gatherer society, often invaded by other cultures. They enjoy there access to salt, spices, seafood, fish and fruits, though, and have a unique cuisine with an emphasis on stews served with flavorful salty-fruity condiments. They do not particularly enjoy spices, though.
Monsoon forests: Too small and thin to have any significant self-contained culture, they tend to form regional variets withing larger cultures, exept the most extreme estern one, fairly isolated, enjoying closeness to the sea and mountains, allowing for plenty of fresh water, sea-salt, fruits (coconuts, mangos and citruses being favorites), spices and both cotton and linen cloth productions. Dairy, which allow for small-scale of various peas and beans, dairy is quite frequently consumed, but beef is taboo. and the wet climate with it's abundonce of disease carrying insects make it difficult to slaughter and eat large animals in general.
Savannah near the large river: Mostly houses the main tropical civilisation. A deeply unegaletarian irrigation society, stretching throught the Savannah, but also steppes and desert, they consider themselves the pride of the region. The inhabitants of these lands tend to be very dark, tall and slender-boned. Cultivation of emmer, peas, gathering of salt in the desert, and raising of cattle allow for a healthy diet. Most fruits include dates, figs, barbary berries and smaller citruses. The upmost town control trade with the peoples of more moderate regions.
Open Savannah: Semi-nomadic or nomadic tribes roaming the land looking for grazing for their cattles, or prey to hunt. The lack of a stable water source make sedentariasation extremely difficult, if not impossible.
Savannah Island, central: Isolated, yet close to the continent, mostly lives a sea-farring lifestyle, mostly hunter-gatherers. Fruits and nuts make the rest of the diet, as well as many small bird species, larger and meatier thanks to insular gigantism, allow them to practice some raising of cattle in the form of tropical, oversized pigeons.
South-Western and Coast Peninsula Savannah: While still open, the nearby sea and mountains allow for a beginning of horticulture, and cold costal waters allow for abundant fisheries. These almost settled cultures, with a very reduced nomadism and beginings of horticulture. Highly interconnected with the small, central island, itself a popular destination of the River People.
North-Eastern Peninsula Savannah: more geographically isolated and has exeptionally low population density due to a lack of food source. Mostly wild, and with some isolated societies of hunter-gatherers, surviving of meat and grain, with occasional roots.
South-Eastern Island: Mostly sea-farring, nomadic, but with the begginings of raising of cattle, mostly birds raised for meat. Fish play a large part of their diet as well.
Eastern Steppes: Mostly coastal population living off fishing, raising cattles such as short-haired sheep and bovins and emmer cultivation, but frequently revert to nomadism due to frequent droughts. They often ressort to trade with other cultures, in hopes of getting additionnal food sources. The mountains allow for a greater supply of fresh water. Most vitamins come from algea or mountain berries.
Deserts: Mostly dominated by camel-mounted traders and merchants, but also "sand-pirates". No settled population, exept maybe in the rarest of oasis.
Do you think this could be implemented as an algorithm. It looks sufficiently deterministic to me for now. Maybe one can throw a world map with elevation data, ocean currents and wind patterns and the program would tell you the different regions in the Köppen climate classification. Cuold that be possible?
If so, it would be very interesting to do paleoclimate models with that and comparing it the the actual ones. Should we expect it to be similar?
Fascinating video by the way. I love your presentation style and appreciate the hard work.
Miki P of course, as long as you know a bit of math and are willing to do the work you should have no problem writing an algorithm for it.
Where on the Earth is Worldbuilding: How To Design Realistic Climates 2?
It's probably not out, yet
Thanks for the link to World Anvil !
I gotta ask, how do you create that satellite view with all the biomes. I really wanna add that to my fantasy map.
There’s a lot to digest in this. I may need to watch it a few more times lol. Jesus Christ be with you friend.😊
As always, an excellent video. I think you quite spoil us, and on that note:
When you're done with climate do you think you'll touch on biomes?
If you do I hope you redo vegetation. It was a good video, the one you already made, but I found it a bit lacking.
Again, loved the video, keep up the good work.
Can't wait for part 2!
Curse you Edgar and your only-on-weekdays upload schedule that makes me unable to watch your videos as soon as they air.
How does all this apply to islands, if it does? And where can I find data about high elevation climates?
Same rules for islands.
0:53 Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't the polar highs particularly dry areas as well? I mean, barely any precipitation falls inside the Antarctic continent surrounding the South Pole or inside Greenland on the ice sheet.
Parts of Antarctica have not seen a flake in hundreds, if not thousands of years.
@@yoironfistbro8128 Further proving this, if you look at the weather for the South Pole, the relative humidity remains consistently well below 30%, including during the Winter in temperatures below -60°C.
I've been waiting for this video!!
OMG I love your videos on world building
I created a sort of desert monsoon effect on my world. The equatorial/south tropical desert called the Malanash by the Felines heats up, and the winds blow towards the cool mountains inhabited by Felin Cotrunikh. During the Mountain winter, winds blow towards the range more, and during summer the winds follow a general prevailing wind pattern (towards the spiraltail lands on the equator). During the winter monsoons, red sand particles get blown through the air, making the sky a reddish-orange, thought to be the mark of the sun God’s distance, as it is similarly colored to a sunset.
That sounds like a really cool setup. I dig the cultural stuff you have created based on the geography. But the existence of tropical desert seems weird to me. Deserts will tend to be located right under high pressure zones like subtropical ridges not at the equator. Even if you have a convenient mountain range near the equator, it's rainshadow may be dry enough to have savannah but not so dry to allow for equatorial deserts.
Thinking about it as I write, you might be able to get away with an elevated plateau (drier conditions up high) that is the rain show of a large mountain range. If that makes sense. Don't know for sure if that would work but might be worth looking into.
Artifexian I realize now that it is near a high pressure band (it stretches from the equator to around 40° south in a supercontinent interior) and a rise near a Rift Valley. I’m glad you like my culture too! All this is making me want to show you where the desert is too. I just realized you have an Instagram can I send you a photo of the map?
Where was this when I needed it!? :D
0:12 On That Note, Does Anyone Have Sources For Making Climates On A Planet That Doesn't Resemble Earth That Much? (Specifically I'm Looking For Ones For A Warmer, Wetter Planet.)
But wait, doesn't Axial tilt matter regarding to climate eras? Like if I have 30 degrees world, do I still place deserts between 15-30 degrees or do I extend them further North?
I think this will be covered in the third part of this climate-series
Part 3 will talk about this. Part 1 and 2 just deals with earth-like setups.
Can we just take a moment to appreciate this man's beard? It's just... Yes. Just yes.
I curios as to why you didn't include the wet parts of the mountains slopes. Elevation is generally a good indicator of precipitation (if it is on the prevailing side) and while.you did talk about rainshadow you didn't apply the converse part of its effect, namely a wetter side on the mountains. Further 800m? That is really low, especially for the tropics.
God... That beard... Its... Beautiful..
Why thank you. :)
Gotta love when Mushoku Tensei's author had to canonically state in story that: "no, the climate doesn't make sense, its probably magic" 20 volumes in.
the only bad thing about this video is that it ends
All good things must, and bad thing too. Things must. :)
It's a little tricky to do with multiple continents but the explanation helps a lot
How do you make all these wonderful animations? You use them nicely to explain complex concepts.
1:11
Sunny beaches: are you SURE about that?
Well, they're usually pretty warm because of the sun.... regardless of how cold the ocean is XD But you probably wouldn't get many places that go from 40 degrees celcius to -30 at a beach, compared to inland. But they probably do exist, yeah