this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2025
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xkcd

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xkcd #3107: Weather Balloons

Title text:

Once you add the balloons into the model, it makes forecasting easier overall--the forecast is always 'cold and dark, with minimal solar-driven convection.'

Transcript:

[A graph is shown. The X axis is labeled Number of Weather Balloon Launches Per Day. It's logarithmic, with ticks in powers of 10, and values shown at 1, 10, 100, 1,000, 1 million, 1 billion, and 1 trillion. The Y axis is labeled Weather Model Accuracy, no values are shown. The plot starts above the mark for 1 balloon, at about 40% of the maximum value of the curve, it quickly rises through a point labelled "Current Rate", at about 4000 launches per day and 85% of the maximum. The maximum value is reached at 100 million, plateaus until 10 billion, and then reduces even more rapidly down to perhaps 15% maximum accuracy above the 10 trillion mark.]

Source: https://xkcd.com/3107/

explainxkcd for #3107

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

We launch over a thousand weather balloons per day?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

It seems reasonable given that ~~space~~ the atmosphere is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

My first thought was “who’s launching all these leather balloons?”.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago

kinky scientists

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

There really is an xkcd for everything.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 week ago

Seems like a climate change proposal to me 👍

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I'm going to need someone to adjust the model for instances in which an F-22 starts shooting them down.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

How about when an unhinged person in the White House starts defunding NWS and launches get cancelled (yes - happening already).

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

"Dabei war'n dort am Horizont
Nur 99 Luftballons."

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago

dramatically removes sunshades
dear god.. the balloons are gay..

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (3 children)

All the fighter jets in the world couldn't make a tiny dent in one trillion balloons.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'd just shoot doem down with FLAC cannons

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago

Good idea using the Free Lossless Audio Codec that will sound way better than mp3 when the balloons all pop.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Not if we build it one trillion of them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

We need more jets right away!