Climates in Conworlds?

[Gd8909]

I'm developing a conworld right now, but I don't know much about climate and such things. I don't know how to decide where different climates go. I know basic stuff like higher elevations make things colder, closeness to the equator makes things hotter, etc. but other than that I'm out of my depth. I have no clue what causes deserts, rainforests, tundras, tropics, etc. and I don't want to just put them randomly.
Anyone have any advice?

[qwed117]

I'm developing a conworld right now, but I don't know much about climate and such things. I don't know how to decide where different climates go. I know basic stuff like higher elevations make things colder, closeness to the equator makes things hotter, etc. but other than that I'm out of my depth. I have no clue what causes deserts, rainforests, tundras, tropics, etc. and I don't want to just put them randomly.
Anyone have any advice?

TBH, we know nothing about our planet, what makes you suspect that we would have the bare scrapules to understand yours?

Just use a climate map of Earth as basis. We usually never do much more.

[Creyeditor]

This is a really good cookbook.no spam!

[sangi39]

This is a really good cookbook.no spam!

There are also a couple of threads dealing with this sort of thing over on the Cartographers' Guild. It's 1am here, though, so I think I'll leave it until tomorrow to find them, but thought I'd quickly drop in and say that things aren't nearly as bleak as qwed117 seems to b making them out to be

[qwed117]

This is a really good cookbook.no spam!

There are also a couple of threads dealing with this sort of thing over on the Cartographers' Guild. It's 1am here, though, so I think I'll leave it until tomorrow to find them, but thought I'd quickly drop in and say that things aren't nearly as bleak as qwed117 seems to b making them out to be

'Tis only as bleak as the 40+inchest of snow that Boston recieved. I'm 90% sure though, that our climate is 30% knowledge, 60% guesstimation, and 10% hearsay

[sangi39]

This is a really good cookbook.no spam!

There are also a couple of threads dealing with this sort of thing over on the Cartographers' Guild. It's 1am here, though, so I think I'll leave it until tomorrow to find them, but thought I'd quickly drop in and say that things aren't nearly as bleak as qwed117 seems to b making them out to be

The Köppen–Geiger climate classification made simpler (I hope so) by Azelor

WIP (sort of tutorial to be) : Climates, applying Geoff's Cookbook at detail (some) by Pixie

WIP - (ambitious) World Map of fictious earth-like planet also by Pixie

WIP: unnamed Earh-like planet by Groovey, at least in later pages

Mapping an Earthlike planet by Akubra

WIP- unnamed fantasy world by Ascanius

Terraformed Venus by Acrsome

The first two are attempts at explaining how various factors work together to influence climate while the others are threads that are actual conworlding works. They tend to start out quite slow, but in terms of climate, they tend to build up over the course of the thread.

Sal's also been pretty good at doling out advice to me when it comes to climate, and I'm sure there are other users on the board who can help as well

[DrGeoffStandish]

Anyone have any advice?

Not exactly an advice but let's present some possibilities.

As you may know, the Earth's temperature oscillates gicing rise to cold periods (like now) and warm periods (like most of the inhabitated Earth's history). Indeed, for a brief period the Earth was essentially a snowball with glaciers covering most of the land, and for long periods the poles had what today is considered subtropical climates (needless to say, areas close enough to the equator must have been hellish).
To read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoclimatology

Another possibility is to consider different tilts, i.e., angles between the rotational axis of the planet and its orbital plane against its Sun (the tilt). You may throw in two suns even, but let's not make it too complicated. There are three qualitively different degrees of tilt. If there is no tilt there are no seasons, only days (warmer) and nights (colder) and the equator will be the warmest place and the poles will be the closest (this is not quite how Earth works where there are seasons; Sweden in summer is warmer than Italy in winter). If there is some tilt but not such that the rotational axis is in the orbital plane we get seasons like present Earth. If the planet is tilted with the rotational axis in the orbital plane there will be eternal spring/autumn (your choice) along the equator but at the poles there will be six month periods of sunshine with hellish conditions some time after midsummer (worse than the hottest places on Earth) and six month periods of darkness with equally hellish conditions some time after midwinter (worse than Earth's South Pole during winter).
To conclude (the extreme scenarios): No tilt means no seasons but large differences in temperatures depending on where on the planet you are (closer to equator means warmer climate). Maximal tilt means no differences in average temperatures (same everywhere) but extreme seasonal variations with temperatures during summer and winter where nothing will survive (though autumn and spring will be nice with a sun circling along the horizon).
To read: http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comm ... still_get/

'Tis only as bleak as the 40+inchest of snow that Boston recieved. I'm 90% sure though, that our climate is 30% knowledge, 60% guesstimation, and 10% hearsay

Hardly any snow here in Central Scandinavia this winter. We got the snow in the early spring instead. This is what my city looked like during most of February and March (until a week ago when we got 20 cm of snow still there): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSqME77EjJk