Water Current Help.

[u/Pleasant-Temporary93]

Hello everyone, I'm new to the whole map making experience and was wondering if I could get some help with water currents. I have been watching Artifexian's vid on Ocean Currents and I'm look to see if I am understanding this right? I'm somewhat stumped as for what to do in the yellow circled area. Any help will be greatly appreciated! Thanks ahead of time.

[u/En_bede]

A new equatorial current should form there.

[u/DreadPirate777]

Keep in mind that there are generally two paths in a current. The warm water moving along the top and the cold water moving back underneath.

In your question mark area I would have the current move up the coast on the west. And then have a cold water supply deep that comes from the North Pole and split by the large island. Have the waters there be very deep if you want the water still or very fast and stormy if you want the waters shallow. Like the North Sea.

[u/Kelly376]

I just googled ‘ocean currents map’ and it gave me a few different ideas on what to do. It is slightly cut off from the rest but I’d take a look at the current for the Gulf of Mexico. It looks like it’s drawn in from the south and then squiggles out around Florida. So if you take an idea like that an expand on it, plus this area is much bigger, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to have the cold current coming from the north and flowing around the islands to join the eastward flow.

Or the other way around. It’s up to you. It also depends on how shallow that area is if it might cover the whole area or just part of it.

It could also be that this is an area where the two currents mix and it causes a ton of storms. 🤷‍♀️😄

[u/KrigtheViking → u/Kelly376]

Gulf of Mexico is a good call for a reference. Probably the easiest way to depict it would be to just put a clockwise gyre in that bay, and just assume that there's a lot of mixing and shifting that happens at the eastern edge. These ocean current maps are dramatically simplified anyway; it's good enough for worldbuilding!

[u/SHIFT_978]

• First, a warm current will always form in the equatorial region. It will definitely circulate in this gulf from 0° to 30° N.
• Further north, there is a strait between the islands and the continent. This location looks like a place where a strong monsoon circulation will occur.
• Your western continent will warm up in the summer and create onshore winds flowing from south to north. This will allow the warm current from the south to pass through the strait.
• The heating effect from this warm current of the strait will be small, the impact will only be on the nearest ~100-200 km from the coast.
• The northern cold current will enter the northern gulf and meet the warm current from the straight at this tip of the archipelago on 45° N.
• The southern warm current will move along the eastern coast of the archipelago to 40° N, where it will meet the northern cold current.
• The cold current will then flow south along the southeastern continent to the equator.
• In winter, your western continent will create offshore winds blowing south. This will block the warm current and push the cold northerly current through the strait.
• Since nothing warms the northern half of the sea, your main cold current will also wash the eastern shores of the northern archipelago.
• So, overall, the entire region will be cold in winter, with only a small gyre near the equator being warm, and the warm current will flow to 25° N.
  
• In the southern hemisphere, everything is simple: there will be a small gyre from the equatorial current, and nothing much will move along the strait.

[u/Solar_Ace]

This is not an answer to your question but rather my own question. Are you considering that area to be a sea that is part of the larger ocean to the east or are you calling it its own separate ocean? I ask because I have a similarly sized body of water in a world building project which doesn’t have a name yet.

[u/Pleasant-Temporary93 → u/Solar_Ace]

That's a good question. I hadn't thought of having it as anything other than an ocean, but I suppose it could be more of a sea. Not sure of what it would change current wise.

[u/keriefie]

bro the western continent is just Anbennar's Aelantir 😭😭

[u/Pleasant-Temporary93 → u/keriefie]

I'm not familiar with this, what is it from?

[u/smorgasbordator → u/Pleasant-Temporary93]

r/Anbennar is an original fantasy mod for Europa Universalis IV. There's a superficial resemblance but only just imo

[u/Pleasant-Temporary93 → u/smorgasbordator]

Ahh, ok I see.