Wikipedia isn't a "bad" source, but KaVir did try to pull a fast one by citing only the Vostok region, rather than the continent itself.



The differences I was talking about are not equal to just "summer = X avg tmp, winter = Y avg tmp, so difference = X - Y", as I've pointed out. Rather, I was talking about the differences in temperature based on the tilt of the Earth, which is not much. The only reason tilt causes a difference at all is because the same solar energy is applied to a greater surface area the further away from 90 degrees you venture.

This conversation is really going off on a tangent, though, and I think it will suffice to say that I drew upon previous knowledge for temperature trends and possible formulae for the OP's MUD, and various sources from Googling "average temperature" for everything else.

Well, that depends on how you define "bad" – Wikipedia is a great starting point but isn't necessarily authoritative.

As for your sources, if all you're going to give us is "prior knowledge" and "various sources", we can't really go that far with just that. :thinking:


That does not establish much of anything regarding latitude/tilt. There are many other factors, such as the size of ocean bodies, etc. My point was just that tilt affects distance from the sun as does latitude. Perhaps another way of asking the question is: Keeping all other factors constant, how is latitude different from tilt? (i.e., does it do anything other than indicate distance from the sun?)

What data are you using that shows the southern hemisphere is colder on average then the northern hemisphere?

Anything I find says the opposite and for good reason, that being that there is more ocean to land in the southern hemisphere. The ocean, taking longer to cool, and in the southern hemisphere making up a majority of the warm jet streams that carry into the colder northern waters help temperatures stay warmer, and overall less extreme in one direction or another over a season.

The larger amount of water cools slower, so even during a 'winter season' when the tilt of the earth is at its full 23 some odd degrees away from that area of the planet it stays more temperate and warmer year round.

I dont think anyone here has even remotely mentioned picking one specific and solitary place, and trying to use that as a justification for an entire continent. I did simply give an example of one location in CO, however if you do some research on the US National Weather pages you can easily see that a variance similar to that is prevelant for most of the US.

Last, the tilt plays a huge role, unless you concentrate specifically on an equatorial region like David has pointed out.

The Lat does indeed modify this trend, however the places with the fewest changes, near the equator of course, do not skew data so much as to say that a temperature variance of +/-10F seems accurate in any regards.

Beyond that, I cant find anything supporting your claim, so again that was all. :)

-Syn

Latitude does not directly indicate distance from the sun; only tilt does. Over the course of a year, all reciprocal points on the northern/southern hemispheres of Earth will have received equal sunlight exposure and will be equidistant from the sun. As a simple example, assume during July, the south pole is 0.5 light years from the sun (arbitrary number). Due to the Earth's tilt, in December, it will be 0.50000000005 light years from the sun (also arbitrary). The distances at the north pole will be exactly opposite in the same corresponding months. Thus, the average distance between the north pole and the sun is equal to that of the south pole. Given that these two places are the furthest possible latitudes away from each other, the fact that their distances to the sun is the same indicates that only tilt affects distance, not latitude.

Another way of looking at it is to just theoretically remove the tilt and have Earth be perpendicular to the sun. Now all the distances remain constant, even though we did not alter latitude at all.

Really, though, this has gone leaps and bounds beyond the scope of the OP, so I'm not posting anything else regarding this.

The following graph was generated using data from NOAA satellites between 1979 and 2007. The biggest contributing factor is the fact that the southern hemisphere has basically had no significant "global warming" compared to the northern hemisphere.

Err, uhh, that's a physics-defying statement… If you keep tilt constant, and vary latitude, obviously you will be varying distance from the sun… I'm not sure how you think that only tilt matters? Both of them directly affect distance from the sun. Your last comment, about the poles somehow proving your claim that only tilt matters, indicates that you don't really understand the point, because the whole idea of the poles is that they have opposite latitudes, and therefore it makes perfect sense for the distances to be inverted!


Umm… No. The Earth is round, remember? So, obviously, as you change latitudes, you change distance from the sun… Just look at a tennis ball, and observe that as you consider different points along its latitudinal lines, the distance from your eye to that point will change…

You need to brush up on your parametrics. Completely ignoring time is why you aren't understanding the concept.



I said constant, not equal. Are you intentionally trying to be obtuse? :P

I don't believe time has anything to do with this: you said that only tilt affects distance from the sun. That is simply a false statement. :shrug: If you're going to bandy about big words like "parametrics" you should do your homework first… or make sure that you didn't say something you didn't mean, which seems to be the case here. It'd be easier to just say you misspoke than to try to defend the statement… people are much more forgiving of an "oops, I misspoke" than an attempt to defend an indefensible position.


Indeed you did. But you gave the argument in the context of only tilt mattering. What else could it mean to say that distances are constant when you are arguing that only tilt matters in distance from the sun? Either only tilt matters, in which case removing tilt makes all distances the same, or tilt isn't the only thing that matters, in which case, well, your statement doesn't make sense given your previous statements.

you're both still arguing, for the love of all that is holy and good in the world don't speak unless its relevant to the topic at hand. X_X crikey. you can have threads and threads and threads and threads and threads (see what im getting at here) arguing with each other about what x said and how you interpreted y and the various definitions of a,b,c,d but you're obviosuly not making any progress as shown in the other thread which has about a million posts. blarghalalajlaklakaaaaaaaaaaaaklalala

<disclaimer here>

I didn't say it was indicative of the whole continent. In fact the point I was making is that your claim of 40°F difference isn't indicative of the whole continent.

But to get back to the matter at hand, if the mud world represents only a section of a world (rather than an entire accessable world), and doesn't revolve around surviving in harsh conditions, then it's probably more interesting to base it in a temperate zone.

Yes it is. It's an average.





This is true, although most MUDs that I've seen/played seemed to prefer encompassing an entire world, so I just made that assumption. To the OP: if your MUD only encompasses a section of a world, you can tweak accordingly.

Nothing to do with it? Do you even understand parametrics? We're talking about a four-dimensional measurement here: average distance between two points in three-dimensional space as a function of time (fourth dimension).



…as a function of TIME. As the Earth revolves around the sun, without tilt, the distance between any given point on Earth and the sun is going to remain CONSTANT. With tilt, the distance is VARIABLE depending on TIME. Latitude is not a fourth-dimension concept, and you can't just hop dimensions arbitrarily and claim that because it affects X in 2D or 3D space, it must affect Y in 4D space. Forgive me if I'm being too blunt, but it's quite early and I'm agitated at the maintenance workers who won't shut up.

You're absolutely right. I apologize.

Not according to the science information I've been taught. The Earth doesn't maintain a perfect circular orbit around the sun. This would also bring time into play too since longer distances mean more time to travel them.

Even if the Earth had a 0 degree tilt and a perfect circular orbit, time still plays a role since lattitude necessarily means there's differing distances involved. Cosmically minuscule as they may be.

The shape of the Earth's orbit is irrelevant to the average distance to the sun as a function of time. Averages are funny like that!

So what, it wasnt his point.

Anyway, Ive always preferred to include a full range of climate zones, at least through strict building.

Perhaps it is because when I design it is based on the way I do a DnD campaign which is to simply create an entire world. Though I would agree with KaVir that if your not including crazy harsh areas, perhaps a temperate climactic area would due just fine.

I was thinking of implementing a system to guide weather, maybe something as simple as the following:

Each area ( still using area files here ) gets a Continent flag, each continent can span multiple climactic zones, so outside of logical grouping and a few other systems that tie into the use of a continent thats not quite relevant.

So each area further has a zone setting, 1 Polar North, 2 Hemisphere North, 3 Equatorial Zone 4, Hemisphere South, 5 Polar South. you can further break down each zone into sub zones, which I plan to do mainly with the use of realms, and further a holding kingdom, however those get into other systems as well.

Then you create whatever type of weather system you wish, in this case temperature specific, and just hit the flag combo you want for specific calculation. Then you can have other things modify the temperature scale such as the things previously mentioned, like clothing, houses, fires in a room, etc.

It should be pretty easy with a little planning and zone layout to make a consistent 'globe' in that respect.

-Syn :)

Then it might help next time to actually, you know, SAY you were talking about the average distance from the sun instead of making a blanket statement about the distance being constant without tilt.

This would be a very effective system if you don't use coordinates of any kind for world location. If you do, though, I don't think it would be any harder to just have each room (rather than whole continents) determine its own "zone" based on the coordinates. This would give a more gradual feel to the climate change if you were traveling great distances, rather than moving over defined boundary lines.

If you're really feeling froggy, you could even go so far as to use the same method to generate climate zones as people do to generate overland maps. Just open up a paint program, reserve certain colors for certain climates, and have at it.



Well, I apologize. I guess I assumed everyone knew that, since there's no other way to make such a measurement with respect to time. You can calculate direct distance (like you're talking about) only for a specific point in time, but if you want to find the distance over the course of a year, as I was doing, you have to take the average of the distances from all possible points in time during that year.

We dont use coordinates, and what I had meant, if it was confusing, was that each area was grouped into a continent flag. The flag can span multiple areas, so 100 areas could comprise the continent of Ludlark, for instance, and each then being grouped further by whatever temperate zone they fall on the map you create.

I have seen a few climate maps as what you are speaking to, which is pretty cool. I don't really like the coordinate or overland system though. Its to removed from my DnD days, and I want to try and polish the old feel of a ROM, while adding some new twists and turns.

Remember though, with my system the zone itself is part of a larger, though only hazily defined, continent. This allows for the areas, as they relate to the physical map my friend and I drew out to entertain the zones in a gradual manner, and still accurately portray weather in a large area.

-Syn, good points

Here's a little pastry from my code kitchen:

Take the ordinal date (that's the number of the day of the year).

Add 42 to it, as Jan 1st isn't really the coldest day and '42' is the answer to everything.

If it's over half way through the year, subtract it from 365.

Divide the result by 2, then subtract about 50, depending on latitude.


Lessee, today is "188".

((365 - (188 + 42)) / 2) - 50 = 87

Aw, darn, the high today was really 89F. Guess it needs some tweakin'. :cry: