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Telecommunicators deliver model output from NMC to various continents and Your Local Forecaster. |
The complex computer model was role-played, equation by equation, in Act Three. Students with pencil, paper and calculators pretended to compute solutions and then handed their "answers" to the equation in the next row, conversing loudly with them. This simulated the coupled and nonlinear nature of the atmospheric dynamic and thermodynamic equations. The student representing the continuity equation used a home-made balance scale, representing the importance of conserving mass and moisture in a numerical model. The instructor, Richardson's "conductor", directed this Act as a maestro, emphasizing to everyone the symphony of processes and variables inherent in a numerical model. Meanwhile, studious types off to the side "performed" research and development on the model, simulating the never-ending real-life efforts to improve the forecasting process.
| "THE FORECAST FACTORY" | |
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| Your Role Is: NMC Numbercrunchers |
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| You Appear In: ACT THREE: NUMERICAL MODELING |
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| WHERE GO: | To the NMC Modeling area (row next to Interpolation) |
| YOU NEED: | Assimilated data given to you by Interpolators Blank 4-panel map Pencil, paper, calculator if you've got it Xeroxed real-life 4-panel forecast Person representing the Conservation of Mass Equation has a homemade scale |
| WHAT DO: | Wait until you get the green assimilated data from the Interpolators, then... scribble a lot on scraps of paper, hand scraps back and forth as if you're trading numbers, lots of talking among each other. Then, the Telecommunicators come and get the real-life 4-panel yellow forecasts from you. |
| IN REAL LIFE: | You'd be part of a big computer program! Richardson did his forecast by hand, but that was insane. Modern weather forecasting needed the invention of the electronic computer to become a reality... Each one of you represents a different equation-of-the-atmosphere in the model! |
On to Act Four >>
Back to Act Two <<
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