[Space] Terraformed Venus as a setting

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

But being much colder than earth's poles would limit their usefulness quite a bit.

Earth's actual poles aren't particularly useful even in the local summer. Depending on where and how the sunlight peeks over the sunshade Venus' poles might be warmer than Earth's (on average) as well.

With the sunlight needing to go through the atmosphere "edgewise" the atmosphere could give more shielding v. UV than it did at the equator..

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by acrosome

And it's boring.

Interesting weather is more important than being able to grow crops?

Originally Posted by acrosome

And complicates working out climate. What effect do such stable wind patterns have? How far from the equator do the tropical jungles spread?

Who said the wind patters were stable? You still get chaotic phenomena that move jet streams around and cause cyclones and Venusian equivalents of el nino and stuff.

The jungles spread from the equator to half of the width of the equatorial Hadley cells.

Luke

[acrosome]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

Interesting weather is more important than being able to grow crops?

It's more important to me, the guy who wants to stat all of this. I'm not personally trying to grow crops there. Plus, people grow crops just fine on Earth, even with the "interesting" weather. So that's patently not an obstacle to growing crops- I'd say you're wrong, there. The 0.615 of a year is just harder to work out in game terms.

Originally Posted by lwcamp

Who said the wind patters were stable?

All the climate geeks. They'd certainly be stable compared to a world with an axial tilt! There'd be no seasonal variations. No monsoons. No return of the westerlies. No hurricanes. Etc. You get very stable weather compared to Earth. I'd rather not speed up the rotation than speed it up and not give an axial tilt- at least that would be interesting. A hassle in many other ways, but interesting.

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by acrosome

It's more important to me, the guy who wants to stat all of this. I'm not personally trying to grow crops there. Plus, people grow crops just fine on Earth, even with the "interesting" weather. So that's patently not an obstacle to growing crops- I'd say you're wrong, there. The 0.615 of a year is just harder to work out in game terms.

You were the one who complained about the shorter seasons making farming difficult.

Originally Posted by acrosome

All the climate geeks. They'd certainly be stable compared to a world with an axial tilt! There'd be no seasonal variations. No monsoons. No return of the westerlies. No hurricanes. Etc. You get very stable weather compared to Earth. I'd rather not speed up the rotation than speed it up and not give an axial tilt- at least that would be interesting. A hassle in many other ways, but interesting.

You said you spun the planet up to give it a reasonable day length. If so, there will be hurricanes.

Luke

[acrosome]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

You were the one who complained about the shorter seasons making farming difficult.

Yes, it would mean shorter growing seasons, which might screw up crop schema that rely upon more than one harvest in a year. But big picture, from a "meta" gaming point of view, I think it's less of an issue. It's just a bookkeeping PITA since all the GURPS info seems to assume an Earthlike year.

Originally Posted by lwcamp

said you spun the planet up to give it a reasonable day length. If so, there will be hurricanes.

Not as bad as we have on Earth. If that were so, then why are hurricanes seasonal? They rely partially upon air/water temperature differentials to input energy, which are exacerbated by seasonal change.

Or am I thinking of mid-latitude cyclones?

EDIT-- Almightly Wikipedia says yes, the mid-latitude cyclones rely upon temperature differentials, but so do hurricanes, though it isn't the fundamental process in hurricanes as it is in the nontropical cyclones. That's why hurricane season peaks in late summer, when the temperature differential between the sea surface and aloft are the greatest.

So I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that, yes, without an axial tilt the weather is going to be much more stable and much less dramatic. Or am I missing something fundamental?

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by acrosome

Not as bad as we have on Earth. If that were so, then why are hurricanes seasonal? They rely partially upon air/water temperature differentials to input energy, which are exacerbated by seasonal change.

Or am I thinking of mid-latitude cyclones?

EDIT-- Almightly Wikipedia says yes, the mid-latitude cyclones rely upon temperature differentials, but so do hurricanes, though it isn't the fundamental process in hurricanes as it is in the nontropical cyclones. That's why hurricane season peaks in late summer, when the temperature differential between the sea surface and aloft are the greatest.

So I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that, yes, without an axial tilt the weather is going to be much more stable and much less dramatic. Or am I missing something fundamental?

Sure, hurricanes are driven by temperature difference between the warmer water and the cooler air. The formation of hurricanes is part of a feedback system that transfers heat from the oceans into the atmosphere. As it gets warmer, more hurricanes. Since you are on Venus and you have shorter years (and hence have not moved Venus farther from the sun), you will be getting warmer oceans, and hence more hurricanes.

Luke

[Flyndaran]

Oh my that means terror for my alien world that is super hot compared to earth but nowhere near unmodified Venus.
Would thick atmospheres increase or decrease their strength and severity?

[Nereidalbel]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Oh my that means terror for my alien world that is super hot compared to earth but nowhere near unmodified Venus.
Would thick atmospheres increase or decrease their strength and severity?

Just how dense is your atmosphere? The winds on Venus rarely reach 10mph at the surface, but the density of the air gives them pushing power comparable to 70mph winds on Earth. Unless temperature variations on your planet are a bit on the extreme side, you just get a species terrified of 30mph wind, and maybe a bit of hilarity and panic when they measure wind speeds on planets that look otherwise habitable to them.