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Students portraying "Beavis and Butt-head" use shock absorbers to metaphorically damp spurious gravity waves in raw meteorological observations. |
Telecommunications "runners" whisked the simulated weather data to the weather map artists in Act Two. Students play-acted the map analysis process. Then the weather maps were handed to the data initialization module, personified by students imitating the MTV characters "Beavis and Butt-head". Beavis and Butt-head rated the incoming data as "cool" or "sucks" — their judgments represented the crucial initialization process in which radiosonde observations may or may not be ingested into a model depending on the data's conformity to balanced dynamics expectations. The initialization step in real life is implemented to keep the model from being contaminated with spurious gravity waves; the lack of initialization in Richardson's original forecast attempt was the reason for its failure (Lynch 1992). This aspect was play-acted by "Beavis and Butt-head" by having them pull out automobile shock absorbers (rescued from a university garage dump) and metaphorically apply this shock-absorption to the data that "sucked." Meanwhile, at one side a pensive-looking student personified research and development of better initialization methods, mirroring the large real-life efforts in this direction. After the Beavis/Butt-head step, the data was play-act-interpolated onto a standard grid by students and handed down to the "Numbercrunchers" representing the forecast model.
| "THE FORECAST FACTORY" | |
|---|---|
| Your Role Is: NMC Data Initializer |
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| You Appear In: ACT TWO: DATA ANALYSIS AND ASSIMILATION |
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| WHERE GO: | To the NMC Assimilation area, in the row between the Analyzers and the Interpolators |
| YOU NEED: | Real-life maps handed to you by Analyzers Blank maps Brush, shock absorbers (no kidding!), gloves |
| WHAT DO: | Once the Analyzers have given you the red/pink
data, then act like you're Beavis and Butt-head reviewing
the data (instead of videos on MTV). Then say, loudly,
"Cool! Aw, sucks! Cool! Sucks!" and whatever else
is in-character. Also, when something sucks, get out the shock absorbers and pump away on them — really! If something halfway sucks, get out the brush and do a "touch-up" job on the map. While you do this, I'll explain to everyone what it means in real life. After that, hand the red/pink maps to the Interpolators. |
On to Act Three >>
Back to Act One <<
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