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Recently I was making planets again and I was wondering if it was possible to have a world consist of mostly jungle and rain forest biomes. Also with that I was wondering what would need to be the land to water content of the planet to be mostly or hopefully all jungle like this. Is there a way I could have large land masses with less ocean? I also was wondering what the atmosphere would be like. Would it be constantly raining or more normal like here on earth?

The whole point of this world is to have a planet covered with jungle that creates a hostile environment for invading races to the point where futuristic military hardware is trumped.

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    $\begingroup$ What do you mean by "jungle"? Are you referring to the tropical jungles of Earth, or do you simply want tons of vegetation everywhere on land? Are you willing to play around with where the continents are placed? (For example, you could have the vast majority of the landmass at the planet's extremes: consider a world fairly similar to Earth but with most landmass concentrated around the equator +/- 20 degrees or so, and at the poles, with ocean in between. That probably would give you pretty harsh extremes.) $\endgroup$
    – user
    Oct 7, 2015 at 8:06
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    $\begingroup$ See: worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/40/… $\endgroup$
    – James
    Oct 7, 2015 at 13:40
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    $\begingroup$ I agree that the question on geographically typed planets is relevant for comparison, but I don't really think this one is a duplicate of it, particularly after the edits. This question seems to bring up a few points not covered by the current duplicate. $\endgroup$
    – user
    Oct 7, 2015 at 19:30
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    $\begingroup$ This isn't a duplicate. They go over the fact of single biome planets, but they only cover swamps, deserts and water planets. Jungles aren't brought up so this should be listed as a duplicate. $\endgroup$
    – Sunspear25
    Oct 8, 2015 at 11:56
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    $\begingroup$ Actually a quick search shows that jungle is mentioned 6 times, 1 time in question and respectively 2 and 3 times in answers, so "Aren't brought up" doesn't really apply here. $\endgroup$
    – Magic-Mouse
    Oct 13, 2015 at 6:07

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Lots of north-south continents and mountain ranges, to create temperate rainforests?

Old growth forest in other places?

East coasts with mountains to "discourage" open plains.

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    $\begingroup$ Hi o.m. This seems like a good beginning of an answer, but I feel it needs a bit more fleshing out to properly answer the question as asked. $\endgroup$
    – user
    Oct 7, 2015 at 8:04
  • $\begingroup$ Hello @MichaelKjörling, I mentioned some ways how you can have impenetrable forests in non-tropical climates. You wont have them *everywhere if you want to stay realistic -- polar and subpolar zones, rain shadows, etc. Saying much more would add words for the sake of words. $\endgroup$
    – o.m.
    Oct 7, 2015 at 17:36
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There have been times on earth when there was a lot of rainfall and the landmasses were almost entirely covered with forests. I would suggest reading about Devonian and Carboniferous periods.

A large water content on the planet is a MUST. Without enough evaporation, how can you expect a lot of clouds and rainfall? Also, don't have all the land united in one mass. Such a severe divide between water and land results in severe temperature difference in summer and winter and tends to make things all the more drier and hot. Instead, have landmasses the size of modern continents, and have them close to each other (a few hundred miles of ocean between them).

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    $\begingroup$ +1 always for "this can happen, because it has happened. $\endgroup$
    – nitsua60
    Oct 7, 2015 at 14:57
  • $\begingroup$ IIRC during at least one of those periods, the middle of what became North America was covered by a shallow inland sea. $\endgroup$
    – Jim2B
    Oct 7, 2015 at 16:28
  • $\begingroup$ It was, during most of earth's geological history. Doesn't change the fact that earth was covered with forest during devonian and the earlier part of carboniferous. $\endgroup$
    – Youstay Igo
    Oct 7, 2015 at 16:39
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If you are willing to split it between oceans and jungle (mostly ocean) , then yes, you could have a world of jungles.

A world with archipelagoes could end up with regular rain, enough to maintain jungles and rainforests on the islands.

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  • $\begingroup$ Is there a way I could have large land masses with less ocean? The whole point of this world is to have a planet covered with jungle that creates a hostile environment for invading races. $\endgroup$
    – Sunspear25
    Oct 7, 2015 at 3:15
  • $\begingroup$ A continent similar to South America might work. Most of the continent is close to sea level, with tall mountains along one edge to catch the rain and send it across the continent in rivers. $\endgroup$
    – Michael Richardson
    Oct 7, 2015 at 3:20
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I suggest you have a planet with a thick atmosphere - maybe 10 bar. The thick atmosphere ensures even transport of heat around the whole planet ensuring a very similar climate (in your case, hot and humid) almost everywhere.

Have extremely rough terrain, maybe partly due to a somewhat lower gravity combined with vigorous tectonics, which may allow an amount of water sufficient to humidify the planet to actually collect in relatively few very deep seas. The resulting decrease in oceanic heat transport is compensated by increased atmospheric heat transport.

See the video on Blue Moon, an hypothetical high pressure jungle planet for what I am talking about.

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For heat and humidity, you can get the correct conditions by having a thick atmosphere and a process that recycles humidity back to atmosphere.

The jungle itself helps as the plants naturally put water back into the atmosphere as part of the process that transports nutrients into the leaves and plants in such a humid planet would have no reason to do it in a way that uses water economically.

Additionally you should have heavy volcanism to reinject ground water back into the atmosphere. Since you do not want large oceans, you also do not want ocean basins, which would presumably imply no plate tectonics. Not sure what the factor triggering plate tectonics was, but your planet would have to miss it.

The big issue is that even if you get heat and humidity over the entire planet, polar areas will not have enough light for dense vegetation. If the axial tilt is large enough, the polar areas would have more enough light part of the year... total darkness (and heavy rains transporting heat) for an equal part of the year. That might work for your purposes. Might be better to have a year shorter than Earth.

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