Climates of Tyria

[Cynder.2509]

Hello everyone,I'm currently researching about the different climates in Tyria and how it affects the world in like flora, fauna, weather and seasons to compare them with climates of the real world.How would you categorize each map in Tyria from vanilla to PoF and why?How can you logically explain zone changes like from Timberline Falls to Mount Maelstrom and the sudden switch from a stone desert into a tundra in Desert Highlands?It looks and feels a bit odd going from a tundra area (Timberline Falls) into a tropic jungle (Mount Maelstrom) or from a stone desert (most of Desert Highlands) into a tundra (north west of Deset Highlands).

[Suzaku.9537]

Hello OP,These are very good questions that may be answered by further research into ley lines, dragon magic, the magical spectrum, and inadvertent terraforming by powerful magical entities (like human gods or their potent magical artifacts).

• Timberline Falls is not a tundra biome, it is an alpine biome with a temperate ecosystem at lower altitudes towards the coast (below the treeline) and a polar climate towards the mountains (above the treeline).
• Mount Maelstrom is a sub-tropical clime and is more of a coastal region than a jungle ecotope.
• The Desert Highlands of Elona's northern reaches is an ecotone between the cold, damp Southern Shiverpeaks and the arid scrub-lands to its southeast in the mountain-range's rain-shadow (the warm moist air masses blowing in from the Sea of Sorrows is caught and condensed in the frigid alpine peaks and thus never reaching the desert as rain but may as a river).
• The rapid and abrupt transition between arid scrubland and snowy alpine tundra is due to the extreme changes in altitude between the Elonan lowlands and the highlands.
• The Maguuma Jungle, proper (the interior, or, heart of the Maguuma), is considered as a tropical ecosystem, while the Maguuma Wastes is an arid plateau--similar to the Desert Highlands. The Tarnished Coast, part of the wider Maguuma ecoregion, has a slightly cooler sub-tropical clime.
• The Woodland Cascades are a temperate-boreal/taiga climate/ecosystem.
• Ascalon and the Charr Homelands are also temperate, but Ascalon is in a suspended state of decline and decay as well as the appearance of perpetual autumn because of the effects of King Adelbern's deifacted sword, Magdaer. This unimaginably powerful spell cast a malediction over all Ascalon which is widely known as The Foefire.

[Randulf.7614]

There was a similar thread which had some great answers about this from Konig about magical terraforming - Ill try and dig out

[Randulf.7614]

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/34647/tyria-rotation-axis#latest

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@ugrakarma.9416 said:the climate seems very randomly distributed on the map, without concern for latitude.

Keep in mind that the Shiverpeaks' existence is due to altitude, and not latitude. They're said to be 10,000 feet above Kryta or Ascalon and are the tallest mountains in known Tyria (world).

In GW1, Kryta, the Ring of Fire (where it wasn't burning), and the Battle Isles all used the same art assets for climate. Meanwhile, Ascalon's different climate could be blamed on the fact it's literally boxed in on three sides by mountains (Shiverpeaks to the west, Blazeridge to the east, and both meet in the south). The Crystal Desert exists not due to natural climate, but magical tomfoolery - thanks, Abaddon! - as was Orr's jungle climate before the Cataclysm - thanks, Melandru!

Heck, the entire Central Tyria is heavily hinted to have been terraformed by both the Elder Dragons and the Six Gods. So it is rather unsurprising that there's such an unnatural feel in regional climates.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

@"Cynder.2509" said:It looks and feels a bit odd going from a tundra area (Timberline Falls) into a tropic jungle (Mount Maelstrom) or from a stone desert (most of Desert Highlands) into a tundra (north west of Deset Highlands).

In addition to what Randulf quoted of me, in these examples there are some mechanical limitations. Mount Maelstrom was made as part of the Maguuma Jungle set for fairly mechanical and gameplay reasons over lore reasons, while Timberline was part of the Shiverpeaks pallet still. But in addition to that, we got the actual volcano itself that would alter the climate from the snowy region, and various sylvari spreading out their plant magic.

With the Desert Highlands situation, I'd say it's a mechanical limitation that fails to show the proper altitude incline. The Shiverpeaks reach over 10,000 feet above sea level, and that corner of Desert Highlands is technically part of the Shiverpeaks. So it likely has some huge incline that the Springer ranch is sitting on. It's snowy there primarily because it's just that high up.

[draxynnic.3719]

It's also worth noting that the Shiverpeaks probably aren't always as snowed-over as they're shown to be. Anywhere there's a forest, there needs to be at least some period of the year where the ground is clear, even if it's shown as covered in snow in-game. (Unless the trees have been somehow preserved from a time when that was the case, which might be what's going on with the forest in the northwest corner of the S3E3 map.)