My fanfiction setting problem. (Well, I want to start small.)

I'm happy you decided to do this. It's a great step to a managable start, and I'm sure you'll find it very rewarding!

Isla Nublar would have the same climate as Costa Rica. My first suggestion would be to read up on the climate for Costa Rica. The climate is, as you know, tropical, which means that you'll have a dry and a wet season. A lot of rain from May to November, and a long dry season for the rest of the year. Either google "tropical island climate" or "Costa Rica climate" and you'll be able to gather quite a bit of information of what you could expect to smell, feel, hear, see and touch when it comes to vegetation and nature on the island. It's a start.

 

Between 17-28°C? That sounds like San José’s climate. San José is pretty high up on the mountains (1,100-something Km above sea level), so it’s cooler there than on a tropical island.

 

It is, but San José’s climate doesn’t give you an accurate approximation. As a reference, the capitals of the two neighboring countries, Nicaragua and Panama, which are much closer to sea level, have temperatures that oscillate between 20-34 and 16-37°C respectively.

 

I would imagine Isla Nublar would have a tropical rainforest climate, which means 9+ months of rain a year, so wet earth would probably be a common smell. You would also see lots of sea birds, especially sea gulls. Beyond that, you’ll have to use your imagination. The island IIRC had been reforested with Mesozoic vegetation, so the native broadleaf trees would have been largely replaced with conifers and tree-sized ferns and it’s anyone’s guess what they smelled like. I believe flowering plants started showing up in the Cretaceous but I doubt these early species had the colours and smells of modern flowers. And of course, there are the dinosaurs themselves, which would have their own distinctive smells.