On Climate in Life, Science, and Fantasy

I must admit, I've discovered over the last few years that January is a difficult month for me. The joy and companionship of the holidays seems to crash too quickly into unremarkable routine. The cold days of a northern winter demand isolation from the world outside with heavy coats and thick sweaters; the nights are long, and altogether too quiet.

My dislike of January is exacerbated by the absence of my husband, who, like many migratory creatures, heads south for the winter to spend the coldest weeks of the year with his family in the much more amenable climate of the tropics. I would gladly go with him if I could, but the academic calendar demands I stay in a place where trees lose their leaves and all the truly smart animals hibernate.

Still, we are three days into the new semester, and it is looking to be a good one.  Today, I ran my first ever environmental science lab at Avila University.  We simulated aspects of global climate mechanisms, and got to play with all kinds of fun toys like inflatable globes (I was very impressed that the class did not immediately disintegrate into a game of beach ball) and vials filled with convection fluids (which inspired multiple comparisons to lava lamps, and one request to search for "lava lamp" on YouTube so that students who had never seen one would know what that is).

Climate mechanisms have been on my mind for other reasons as well. 

A few days ago, for example, I sat down to sketch out my first map of Selenia's world (from Creatures of Light).  I've always had a vague idea of the location of her home city Talagna relative to other places of interest, such as the coastal city of Al'Panura and the jungle river of Ornoco.  Recently, I've decided to insert a high mountain range (something on the order of the Andes), with accompanying paramos and deserts.  Someday I'd like to take Selenia to all these places (although as you may know, it's going to be tough to get her across the sea alive, since women in her world are routinely thrown overboard to appease the sea god Mikrotus, but I'll cross that bridge -- or plunge into those depths -- when I get there). 

Part of building my dream of Selenia's voyage was manifested by drawing the map, and in drawing the map I had to think, once again, about latitudes, wind currents, land and water masses, and everything else that goes into climate.  It's a really fun puzzle to play with. 

One of my most popular posts of all time -- indeed, THE most popular post until this past fall, when my short piece on Hypatia went viral -- was Biogeography and Fantasy, published in July of 2011.  This post was inspired as I was trying to figure out the logic of the climate of Westeros, the stage upon which George RR Martin's A Game of Thrones plays out.  I extended the discussion to take into account various factors fantasy authors should keep in mind when building their worlds.  If you'd like to read more, you can visit the post here.

And just out of curiosity, here are a few questions you might like to comment on:

When you think about what you've read, what worlds come to mind that are particularly well articulated in terms of climate, geography, and distribution of resources?  Is it clear when some authors have put a lot of thought into this, and others have not?  Is it even necessary to get as geeky-obsessive as I do when laying out mountain ranges and major bodies of water?  All perspectives are welcome.  I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

In other news, this week on Heroines of Fantasy, Mark Nelson has written a wonderful post on the power of play.  Read his thoughts and share yours, as we venture into the New Year remembering the importance of the lighter side of life. 

Biogeography in Fantasy

My summer reading list has included the fourth book of George R.R. Martin's Ice and Fire series, entitled A Feast for Crows.  Certain events in the story had me mulling over the map of Westeros the other day, trying to understand why Dorne has a desert environment. 

The mountain range on the west side of the kingdom of Dorne, combined with the fact that Martin mentions the winds come from the west, gave me part of the answer, as the 'rain shadow effect' (see below) would make those winds dry.  Still, Dorne has quite a bit of coast off the southwest, and it seemed to me the air masses coming from that ocean would have a lot of moisture. 

Then it occured to me -- and here was the key to the puzzle -- that Westeros is actually much larger than I've imagined it to be, extending from a polar latitude near the Wall to what is most likely to about 30N near the region of Dorne.  Roughly equivalent to the north-south expanse of Europe, from the nordic countries to Spain, with a little extra land tacked on in the south.  Some time on "A Wiki of Ice and Fire" corroborated my suspicion, and laid to rest my doubts about the capacity of Dorne to be a dry landscape. 

(My next thought was, "No wonder the royal houses of Westeros have such a hard time keeping it all under one kingdom."  I mean, really.  Why do they even try?)

One of the most challenging and interesting tasks of writing fantasy is "world building".  I was first introduced to this term by DHS, my local writers group that specializes in fantasy, horror and science fiction.  There are many, many aspects to world building, but from my point of view one must always start with the foundation:  the landscapes and biomes in which our characters live. 

It is the landscape that determines the resources available to the human (or non-human) characters in our stories.  The distribution and abundance of those resources, as well as the relative isolation of different regions, can in turn impact the structure and development of the human societies that depend upon them.

The author decides just how meticulous he or she wants (or needs) to be with the biogeographic details of a fantasy world.  But having a landscape that makes 'biogeographical sense' is one of many factors that contributes to the authenticity of a story, and whether or not your readers have conscientious knowledge of the basics of geography and climate, at some level they will sense whether the world 'feels' real or not.

When thinking about the geography and climate of your world, here are some basics to keep in mind:

 1. It's generally easier to start by assuming your world is 'earth-like' in the basics of size, rotation, relative amounts of land surface vs. water surface, distance from the sun, and so forth.  (Of course, if you are a science fiction writer, you'll probably want to throw this point out the window, as the whole premise of your story may involve a world entirely different from earth.  A wonderful example of this is Geoffrey A. Landis' award-winning short story 'The Sultan of the Clouds', set in a level of Venus' atmosphere that has more or less the equivalent of a tropical environment on earth.) 

2. Be aware of the Coriolis effect, which determines large-scale wind patterns on the earth's surface.  Because of the Coriolis effect, prevailing winds will come from different directions depending on where you are on the planet.  In the polar and tropical latitudes, prevailing winds will come from the east (northeast or southeast, depending on which side of the equator you're on).  In temperate latitudes, prevailing winds will come from the west (again, northwest or southwest, depending on which side of the equator). The interaction of landmasses, waterbodies, and wind is an important determinant of local weather patterns, so knowing where the wind is coming from (and whether it has passed over a large water body in the process of getting there) will help determine where the forests, grasslands and deserts can be found on the map of your world.

3. The interaction between the sun's energy and the earth's atmosphere leads to large-scale patterns in the distribution of forests, grasslands, deserts and polar environments, which we refer to collectively as biomes.  For example, at 30N and 30S, one can find a belt of deserts that circle the earth.  (This is the same belt that I now believe Dorne is a part of in Martin's world.)  Boreal forests, on the other hand, dominate from about 50N to 70N.  (And if you've ever wondered why there's more Boreal forest north of the equator than south of it, have a look at a map.  You'll notice our planet has a lot more land between 50N and 70N than it does between 50S and 70S. This consideration adds another level of complexity to world building.  Where are your continents and seas?  The distribution of landmasses can have a huge impact on global and local climate, and therefore the distribution of biomes.)

4. Local mountain ranges are associated with 'rain shadows', a phenomenon which causes the windward side of the range to be relatively wet, while the other side of the range tends to be dry.  In the rain shadow effect, as air masses hit mountain ranges, they rise and become cooler.  The evaporated water they carry condenses and falls as precipitation.  By the time the air mass crosses the mountain range, it has lost a lot of its moisture, resulting in dry climates on the other side.  Variation in the topography of your mountain range can add a lot of complexity to this effect.  Low passes, for example, can allow channels of moister air to reach the far side of the range.  Very high mountains can result in local air circulation patterns that lead to unusually wet slopes.  And within a mountain range, of course, there can be an interesting mix of relatively wet and dry slopes and valleys.

That's probably enough for one post.  There are many excellent on-line resources that can tell you more about how latitutude, wind patterns, land masses and water bodies interact to determine the distribution of biomes on our planet, so you can put these principles into practice when developing your fantasy world.

Next week, we'll have a look at the map of Moisehen, and talk about how these and other phenomena affect the climate and ecosystems of Eolyn's world.