I opened this thread if anyone is interested in asking some questions about weather and climate especially in relation to worldbuilding for stories. I am happy to help answer questions to improve the worldbuilding especially with how the environment affect the world/story. I would also be happy to help you with how magic/power work with real-life physics.

If anyone has question about my background for this, I have B.S. in Physics, and I am a second year Master's student in meteorology with background in advanced meteorology courses.

Hi, I got one of you don't mind:
Could a layer of breathable atmosphere exist on a gas giant? Maybe it could be sandwiched between two other layers of toxic gases.
Thanks

I have a question related to Weather and Wizardry:


Why do Ravens and Crows like to fly during heavy rain and thunderstorms? Does it interfere with Earth’s magnetic fields?

In one of my comics (Tusk), I am imagining a world that is 90 percent open ocean. The largest coherent land mass is about the size of Hawaii. The rest of the dry land surface is comprised of small archipelagoes and coral reefs. Can you think of any climatic idiosyncrasies that would arise in such a scenario?

Thanks for the thread! I have a synopsis for a story set in a future of high sea levels and my notes contain the description ‘grayish purple cloud cover, with an orange glow in the cloud breaks’. Do you think this could be possible in a breathable atmosphere, such that it could be woven it into the story? If not it will be more of a metaphorical design feature.

Looking at each question, I have responses for all of them.

@Iothar: Possibly. Space is a mysterious place, so we do not know everything that is out there. For an example, a Hot Jupiter (gas giant that is close to star hence being a hot gas giant) orbiting a star was noted to have winds possibly over 14,000 kmh. For the atmosphere, generally most dense is at the bottom layer. Then density decreases as one goes up. More dense means greater mass per volume. That kind of atmosphere is possible given one layer is more dense than the breathable air while second layer is less dense. Does that make sense?

@kawaiidaigakusei: It's largely depends on how water-resistant the feathers are. Some species of bird don't mind rain while others with less water-resistant feathers would tend to seek shelter from rain. For another question, no, it does not interfere with magnetic field because Earth's magnetic field is generated through its iron core.

@fallopiancrusader: Considering you mentioned coral reef, I would strongly suggest tropical climate at or near the planet's equator for some lands. Some that are near north/south poles are much colder. Overall, the climate of the planet would be much more stable since the ocean would moderate the climate. Those in middle latitude would resemble more like U.S. West Coast. However, since there is more ocean and lands are much smaller, hurricanes/tropical cyclones would last much longer provided they stay over warm waters. Any land everywhere would see more rain/snow.

@Ironscarf: Yes, it's possible on habitable planet orbiting reddish star. Like I mentioned, we do not know everything that is out there in the space.

TwedeeNimbus wrote:
@fallopiancrusader: Considering you mentioned coral reef, I would strongly suggest tropical climate at or near the planet's equator for some lands. Some that are near north/south poles are much colder. Overall, the climate of the planet would be much more stable since the ocean would moderate the climate. Those in middle latitude would resemble more like U.S. West Coast. However, since there is more ocean and lands are much smaller, hurricanes/tropical cyclones would last much longer provided they stay over warm waters. Any land everywhere would see more rain/snow.

Because of the lack of large landmass to break up the oceans, wouldn't the tides be rather large and swift?- Even if the planet doesn't have moons the solar tide would still be a huge factor wouldn't it?

Hmm. The solar tide wouldn't be a much of impact compared to those with moon(s) because the host star would be far enough that gravity of star would not to affect tide as much as the moon(s)'. Given there are moons or just one, I would expect the tidal patterns to be similar to Earth's depending on mass and strength of gravity. If no moon, then the tides wouldn't be as much as Earth's.


And I apologize for slow reply. I was slammed this week, but I am doing much better.

@tweedeenimbus: let’s say that this water-world did have a moon, and the moon’s mass were twice that of earth’s. (let’s say for the sake of argument that the distance is the same) would the tides be exactly twice as intense as what we would expect on earth? Or would the gravitational influence manifest itself based on some sort of non-linear equation?

TwedeeNimbus wrote:
Hmm. The solar tide wouldn't be a much of impact compared to those with moon(s) because the host star would be far enough that gravity of star would not to affect tide as much as the moon(s)'. Given there are moons or just one, I would expect the tidal patterns to be similar to Earth's depending on mass and strength of gravity. If no moon, then the tides wouldn't be as much as Earth's.

Without large (continental) landmasses to break up the tidal movements though different things happen to what we have on earth. I think they say that if we didn't have continental sized masses on earth then our current tides would be about twice as high.

There was a time in earth's history where there were no continental land masses and the moon was closer. The tides were very high, but it didn't matter as nothing lived on land yet. In fact life was confined to the ocean floor because the ocean surface was so rough.

bravo1102 wrote:
There was a time in earth's history where there were no continental land masses and the moon was closer. The tides were very high, but it didn't matter as nothing lived on land yet. In fact life was confined to the ocean floor because the ocean surface was so rough.

Yes, that's true. Not to mention how toxic the atmosphere was to begin with, and the ozone layer did not form until after the continental landmass formed and appeared out of the ocean. That was Precambrian. It was not until towards the latter half of Paleozoic era when there is an ozone layer and, it's safe to live on land.