Hub.mn

It seems to me, from my limited meterological knowledge, that the entire N. Hempisphere would be incredibly dry. One of the reasons the Northern Hemisphere on Earth is so damn wet is because there's a hell of a lot of water between continents. On Micras, the continents in the Northern Hemisphere are 1) really large, and 2) just a stone's throw away from each other. I could see a lot of tundra in Keltia, Benacia, and Appolonia. Though the sections of those continents that approach the tropics look like they might get a fair amount of rain. In all, quite extreme differences in climate in the Northern half of our little oblate spheroid.

Yep. It doesn't help, either, that the deep interiors of those continents tend to coincide with the 30-degree parallel, which deserts on earth tend to cluster around. That latitude is the site of persistent atmospheric highs because it's the boundary of two large cells of air movement; cold air from high up gets pulled down to the surface, where it warms. Warm air can carry more water vapor than cooler air, so if the air wasn't unsaturated when it was higher up, it is by the time it reaches the surface; so little likelihood of rain, a lot of evaporation (especially in the lower latitudes). And the higher mountain ranges are going to cause rain-shadow effects in certain directions, too, which will make things worse in certain areas.

I still think things will be mitigated to taiga at mid-higher latitudes once you get into less evaporation-friendly areas, but yes... lots of desert and steppes in and about 30 degrees north, lots of tundra at the further-high latitudes.

Out of curiosity, I tried to figure out whether Babkha would contain any actual desert (you have to admit, it'd be kinda funny if it didn't). It almost certainly would, at least in western Eura, but most of it's probably not going to be as severe as the big interior deserts in the north.

We tended to regard central Euran Ostans of Zjandaria and Molivadia as being a home to cossacks and nomads (which have been updated onto the Babkhan Insurgency map - nice work on the original incidentally Shyriath) and more akin to steppe conditions than traditional desert, so its nice to have a serendipity where our back-story matches the assumptions of this climate mapping exercise. I've always regarded the big deserts as being confined mainly to Baatharz and Zsharra, but a Razjanian desert is perfectly viable and any desertification elsewhere could be attributed to the catastrophic degradation caused by Babkhan environmental management practices.

& actually, if much of the interior of the northern hemisphere was arid and desertified that would be a neat in-story explanation of the high rate of state failure and the significant portions of territory left uninhabited or rather uncontrolled by a functioning state.

It's good to know that the map is getting some use... although looking at that insurgency map, I'm minded never to go strolling through the Babkhan countryside without a weapon. And an armed bodyguard. And, perhaps, a pack of ravenous cyborg wolves.

About the only point in that description where I see a likely discrepancy is Baatharz, which has a fairly favorable position for moist weather hitting it, but maybe if there were a high enough ridge of mountains in the way the rain shadow would account for desert there (with a nice strip of rainforest on the opppsite side). We may have to wait for an updated physical map to make that evident, though.

& actually, if much of the interior of the northern hemisphere was arid and desertified that would be a neat in-story explanation of the high rate of state failure and the significant portions of territory left uninhabited or rather uncontrolled by a functioning state.

That's actually a pretty good point...