#3107: Weather Balloons
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[A graph.]
[X axis has 14 divisions/ticks upon it, a selection of them labeled logarithmically with progressive values of ten:]
1 [First tick]
10
100
1,000
1 Million
1 Billion
1 Trillion [Penultimate tick]
[Rightwards arrow and label:] Number of weather balloon launches per day
[Y axis is unmarked and unquantified:]
[Upwards arrow and label:] Weather model accuracy
[The plot starts above the first mark for 1 balloon, at about 40% of the eventual maximum value of the curve. It starts rising quickly before levelling off, effectively plateaus between 100 million and 10 billion, then reduces even more rapidly down to perhaps 15% of the maximum above the final 10 trillion mark.]
[A point on the line at about 4000 launches per day and 85% of the maximum is indicated by an arrow and label:] Current rate
[The graph is decorated (behind the plot-line) with a number of drawn features, mostly of weather balloons dotted around the space between the 'ground'/X-axis and the upper limit of the plot.]
[The upper balloons are visibly more expanded than those closer to the ground, one of which seems to have just been released by a Cueball standing half way between the "1" and "10" tickmarks, as apparently linked by some 'movement dots'.]
[Most balloons are at or around the upper limit of their range, and the number of balloons around a general horizontal position increases from left to right.]
[A single high-altitude ballon is found in the area above the plot-line to the left.]
[In the top right, balloons become heavily clustered and an arrow points at this overlapping mass (once more above the plot-line) leading from a text label:] Layer of weather balloons, not accounted for in models, blocks sunlight from reaching Earth
[A stylistic 'Sun' is drawn above the top-right cluster of balloons, various light-to-mid-shade halftones are used to roughly indicate shadows cast below the in reasingly densely packed balloons leading up to this section of the scene. The lightest tones start to 'reach the ground' at slightly above the "1 Billion" mark, the darkest tones starting in the 1 Trillion to (unlabeled) 10 Trillion division.]
(Sourced from explainxkcd.com)
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.'