I am sorry, but that's not plausible - on a retrograde planet, the Coriolis force would reverse the sea currents you show there. Also, sea currents don't run along the Tropic of Cancer; they can run along the equator.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
You're sure? The "neutral" current I have at the Tropic of Cancer is meant to be the top of a larger gyre touching the Equator. Also, how do you mean by reverse? Reverse flow or switch warm & cold?
"Reverse" means that the sea currents you are depicting there are these of a non-retrograde body. On a retrograde body, they would point in the opposite direction.
The problem with the gyre is that the axis of the gyre is centered on the tropic, unless your body has a very different rotation rate than Earth. It ain't going to produce an east-west or west-east current along the Tropic of Cancer. Also, what's stopping the cold and warm sea currents at the southern tip of your continent from merging?
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
The They who said it
Yeah that is interesting, there appear to be two main currents in the south and it's unclear what prevents them from instead being one current, yet currents do merge when heading the other direction
I do see a great potential hurricane area and a place where there's definitely going to be tornadoes though, whichever ways the ocean currents are turning.
But yes, if the planet turns the other way to earth, (sun goes west to east) so too will the currents go the opposite ways. So you'd get warm currents on west coasts and cold currents on east coasts, whichever hemisphere you're in, and they'd rotate counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere (where this continent is) and not the direction they're currently rotating.
Is that a Griffin?
I’m noticing a fair few things about this map.
First off the spiral archipelago. Kinda cool looking and my guess says this is either a civilization construct or a luck of the draw of local geology and erosion patterns. Spiral and curve formations do exist in reality, for example the spiral jetty in the Great Salt Lake in Utah.
That said vis a vis the ocean currents, that’s going to cause a barrier island effect. Stuff to the left (west) and down (south) is going to be surprisingly calm seas. The outlet to the open ocean at top (north) may have a local maelstrom or whirlpool as a result of being the crossroads between two marine environments. Think Charybdis in the Mediterranean basin. It happens a lot on Earth, many maelstroms or whirlpools form in similar areas.
As far as the current routes. Ocean currents don’t like to be broken up by large landforms such as a peninsula. Assuming your westbound current reaches the spiral archipelago and then turns north, the mountainous peninsula will block direct flow and send it back out to sea leaving minimal effect upon that northern gulf. Think what Scandinavia does to the North Sea Drift. It blocks it which is why the warm water effect of the current doesn’t reach Karelia in northwest Russia and parts of Finland. Despite nominally being connected to the same ocean regime. Or for similar effect, why the sea of Othotsk near Kamchatka is cold despite being literally next door to the Kuroshio/Aleutian warm water currents. The Kuril and Japanese islands block the current’s potency.
Which will mean the north side of those mountains around that gulf are likely to be a frigid subarctic climate not unlike parts of Alaska or Siberia. At least during winter anyways.
The Western current has almost no problems being a typical cold water current. Given the lack of major river systems in that part of the map, it’s likely it works with the western plateau adjacent to the central cordillera of the continent. Meaning the plateau is very likely desert and scrubland and the coast is probably a drier type of Mediterranean climate. Think like San Diego, California.
The only problem with the cold water current is again a peninsula. The southwestern peninsula would send it back out to sea just like why the California Current doesn’t reach southern Mexico. The Baja peninsula blocks it. This peninsula and the southwestern region nearby would likely then be a dry to dry forest subtropical to tropical climate. Think much of western and southern Mexico.
The southernmost edge of the entire continent should be a continuous warm water current. Much like the northern Indian Ocean. Meaning the southernmost and eastern reaches would be depending on trade wind effects, elevation and proximity to the ocean anywhere from tropical to subtropical wetlands such as marshes like seen in the Pantanal of South America to full on rainforest on the windward/eastern part of the mountains to basically humid continental climates like Georgia or Mississippi. Depending.
And I’m not correcting for retrograde rotation of the planet. The entire map’s hydrology and what currents do work would then have to be reversed. And thus all the climates I describe as well.
Edited by MajorTom on Jul 26th 2023 at 10:15:57 AM
Meh, ocean currents can flow around capes just like they can flow through the Indonesian archipelago from the Pacific into the Indian Ocean or pertinently off southeastern Africa and Australia into the Southern Ocean (although that may depend on the circulation of the other oceans). That's less the case for the cold current off the western coast, though; depending on the minutiae of the atmospheric circulation and of other continents I can see either a weaker gyre or a reverse current happening there. Assuming prograde rotation, of course.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Localized currents can do that yes. They can do pretty much whatever they want.
But those driven by oceanic gyres don’t. Especially when they’re in areas where the current runs slow as in cold currents like the California Current or where part of it peters out and/or changes direction a la the North Atlantic Current/North Sea Drift.
For example the North Atlantic Gyre. Starts with the equatorial current that then diverts around the entire Caribbean basin. It should flow through but doesn’t because gyre driven currents don’t work that way. It then diverts northwest around the Bahamas and becomes the Gulf Stream (which picks up energy from localized circulation from the Gulf of Mexico via the Florida Strait) and goes north along the eastern shores of North America. It turns east near Newfoundland because it’s not going to follow around the coast but change direction parallel to it and thus it goes away from the Greenland passage and Hudson Bay. When that North Atlantic Current then hits the British Isles it splinters, most of it heading south past France and Spain and becoming the cold water Canary Current which heads to near the equator where it warms up and becomes the equatorial current thus beginning the cycle again.
In all circumstances the land dictates how those kinds of currents go. It’s why gyre currents do not pass through areas such as the Drake Passage or around the Cape of Good Hope. They stick to themselves basically. Mixing of different basins in such regions is more driven by local currents rather than major oceanic gyres.
Otherwise we wouldn’t see vast differences in sea temperature in areas right next door to each other relatively speaking. Like the Sea of Othotsk or Bering Sea being cold local currents right next door to the warm water Kuroshio/Aleutian currents. Or in reverse, the borderline hot waters of the Gulf of California and southern Mexico not mixing with the cold California Current despite only a tiny strip of land that is Baja separating them.
The North Atlantic Gyre does not "divert" around the Caribbean - the water of the Loop Current in the Yucatan and Florida Straits comes from the straits between the Antilles.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
I appreciate the feedback! After spending some time away from this project and thinking things out, I think I'll be switching the planet back to prograde. I wanted it retrograde to put the western regions into a rain shadow... but if Major Tom is right then that area works as a desert anyway. So I don't see a point in working around a retrograde spin anymore, it's leading to more issues than solutions.
With that in mind, I scaled down the map to rework currents with more ocean in mind. How does this new map look..? I expect there to be some issues with it and would appreciate more feedback. Also listed some questions I have.
(1) I have...no clue what to do with region 1. I understand the equatorial current would divert around Continent B, moving north with warm water, but I'm not sure what it should do from there. There's also the westward warm current running under Continent A. Would these two currents merge? Should there be an independent gyre here? Or is there a third option I'm totally missing?
(2) Should there be a gyre in this empty space?
(3) Should the eastern gyre connect to the equatorial current, or is it alright how it is?
All feedback is super appreciated. Big thank-you to everyone who's helped so far.
(1) seems like becomes an equivalent to the Gulf of Mexico/Caribbean. Exact sea currents probably depends on relative sea levels, and for that we'd need to have a global map.
Now that equatorial current is interesting. Eastward-moving atmospheric waves can develop in the tropics and run along the equator. On Earth they are known as the "Madden-Julian Oscillation"; in an atmosphere of a hot planet or with a low pole-equator temperature difference it can become strong enough to reverse the winds on the equator. But the winds in the tropics still stay easterly unless the pole-equator temperature difference becomes very small. Of note, such an atmospheric configuration will spin up a lot of hurricanes close to the equator.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
@Septimus Heap - What exactly do you mean by (1) being similar to the Gulf of Mexico?
Also very intruiged by the equatorial current thing, I didn't know that. I'm basing those westward currents off the idea that there's some third eastern continent diverting the flow back westward, as I've seen in most of my references... is it more logical for there to be a single eastward current instead, without the westward "bumpers"? It's stumping me a bit due to the lack of a continent on the equator.
Equatorial ocean currents will go eastward even without a continent, unless the pole-equator temperature gradient is nonexistent or reversed. Or if as above atmospheric waves force an eastward current.
What I mean with (1) as Gulf of Mexico is that the climate there will resemble that of the Gulf of Mexico. Most likely, ocean currents run east to west and warm water piles up there before escaping westward through the strait between the continents.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Ah okay, thank you for the clarification!
That is totally a griffen.
Region 1 is correct that it should have a Gulf of Mexico type effect. It could also have a similar effect seen off the west coast of Mexico where local warm water currents “converge” with the North Pacific Gyre specifically the California Current as it heads back out to sea and becomes the North Pacific Equatorial Current. This convergence would meet up with the cold water current coming off Continent A as it becomes a warm water current again passing by Continent B.
Region 2 would most likely be dominated by local currents. Think the Bering Sea, Arctic Ocean and whatnot. Gyres depend upon the Coriolis effect and equatorial rotation. It is possible a circumpolar gyre may exist around the pole a la the Antarctic Circumpolar/Subpolar Gyre(s). But the northern gulf wouldn’t contain one directly most likely. Affected by such yes, but contained to strictly there no.
Region 3 is basically the equatorial current. Or part of it that runs parallel as part of it. The splinter current that goes around the southern part of Continent A would become a local current.
As an aside, it wouldn’t surprise me if your southern equatorial current pulls off being like the EAC (East Australia Current) and is surprisingly high velocity owing to interactions of nearby Continent B. But that may depend more upon scaling for latitude and more importantly the local geology of the southern part of Continent B specifically the offshore continental shelf. If the shelf is broad and shallow it might speed it up, like the undersea plateau northeast of Australia. If it is steep and quickly turns deep it shouldn’t. But this is just an aside.
One thing worth noting is that your planet probably doesn't have strong seasons - that configuration of equatorial currents (a narrow eastward one on the equator, with westward currents just off the equator) forced by atmospheric waves can only occur on a planet with weak seasonality.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
I want to say that’s the marker of the equator and its motion eastward as a reference point.
I could be mistaken however.
I see a grey marker which is the equator and black markers which show currents, so I'd say they are separate.
Besides, I'll never stop recommending alternatives to All Planets Are Earthlike.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
UPDATE: As of 8/6 this project has been changed back to a prograde world, but I'm still seeking feedback on currents. Please see my most recent post for info.
Working on a WOF redux and chipping away at ocean currents right now. Do these look alright?
https://sta.sh/0xn5y480e2o
Note that this planet spins retrograde. The latitudes shown are the Arctic Circle and Tropic of Cancer.
Also, excuse the link, I can't get upload image to work...
Edited by sleebykiddy on Aug 6th 2023 at 2:20:50 PM