Ocean Currents: Terrestrial, Waterworld & Tidally Locked Planets
Why Worldbuilding Stack Exchange recommends it
Worldbuilding Stack Exchange answerers point people to it when they need a practical guide to drawing believable ocean currents and climate for an invented planet.
Recommended by 3 people across 3 different months, 2019 to 2022.
What it is
A short explainer from Artifexian on how to construct ocean currents for a fictional world. It covers Earth-like planets, waterworlds and tidally locked planets, drawing on oceanography and climate-modelling papers listed in the description.
What people said
Recommends TheDyingOfLight · 2019-09 · Worldbuilding Stack Exchange · on “Northern Great Lakes in an Alternate Island Africa--Would the Sahara DESERT Still be Around?”
@JohnWDailey Just write me here and I'll drop a throwaway e-mail address as a comment. However, I learned most of my climate building knowledge from Artifexian [LINK] , a Worldbuilding-Youtuber. Fantasy Maps & Plate Tectonics [LINK] , Atmospheric Circulation [LINK] , Ocean Currents [this video] and How To Design Realistic Climates 1 [LINK] should help you.
Recommends LuizPSR · 2020-11 · Worldbuilding Stack Exchange · on “Help with Pressure, Winds, Precipitation and Climate Zone”
Well, the youtube channel Artifexian have some videos on this topic, he also deals with a more hyper realistic worldbuilding that you might be interest. How To Design Realistic Climates 1 [LINK] How To Design Realistic Climates 2 [LINK] Hot & Cold Planet Climates [LINK] Terrestrial, Waterworld & Tidally Locked Planets [this video] Climate Zones Of RETROGRADE Planets [LINK] Wind, Weather, and Mordor [LINK]
Recommends Ambjörn · 2022-02 · Worldbuilding Stack Exchange · on “Are the currents on this planet realistic?”
I am by no means an expert on currents. But I took the liberty to draw something that might be a bit more realistic. I have ignored continental shelves as I can't see any that's clearly defined, you might want to look into that. The blue currents are cold, the red warm and the black are neutral. I suggest checking out the videos of Artifexian. This is the one I used to learn what little I know about currents: [this video] [LINK]
Cites aphid · 2021-05 · Worldbuilding Stack Exchange · on “Tidally Locked Planet, Weather”
Tidally locked planets can be habitable In actuality, having a tidally locked planet isn't such a big problem for habitability w.r.t. climate. Take a look at what PlaSim [LINK] generates for a tidally locked earth with solar constant of $1100\text{Wm}^{-2}$ (real earth value: $1360\text{Wm}^{-2}$ ). Notice how the climate on the day side ends up quite similar: the region around the pacific ocean is habitable. The atlantic ocean ends up much like the north pole in winter: a few metres of ice covering liquid water below, and temperatures around $-30^{\circ}\text{C}$ . Landmasses on the cold side can get quite cold, the model seems to indicate $-110^{\circ}\text{C}$ as the minimum average tempe