Talk:3107: Weather Balloons

If you could make weather balloons out of plastic grocery bags you could address global warming and plastic bag pollution at the same time. 47.248.235.170 21:35, 25 June 2025 (UTC)Pat

You'd only delay those problems as weather balloons do have a life expectancy, just look at the problems the Myth Busters had with them when tackling Lawnchair Larry. 2001:1C02:1A9D:9700:391C:7C6C:4E0A:AD94 23:21, 25 June 2025 (UTC)

It wouldn't be a plastic recycling method so much as a plastic distribution method. RegularSizedGuy (talk) 00:26, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

The current description is useful -- but the phrase "over time" is in error. The graph shows the relationship between the number of weather balloons and the accuracy of modelling: "time" is not a component. 165.225.115.132 23:56, 25 June 2025 (UTC)

I would say time is a component because the x axis is labeled number of weather balloons launched _per day_, therefore distributed through time, therefore time is part of the graph. 179.217.229.235 06:54, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

The original complaint was neutered fairly soon after the observation was made, anyway, so no longer applies. Clearly you could progress through "number of balloons per day". Testing a given number one day, a larger number the next is an easy method (for as long as you wish to sustain that, and are able to). Or even just test for a few releases, one day, then immediately launch more (and test), then yet more (test again), all before the initial ones start to 'decay' out of the current count faster than you can add to them (any eventual backsliding, aside, that makes a timeward correlation to numbers currently aloft).

But, truly, you could scattergun the effect. Today, launch 1. Tomorrow launch 1 trillion. The day after, try 4000. The day after that, try 4000 again (just because), or 1 or 400 or 1 trillion or 18 trillion or 42 (or none) — whatever is you desire and within your capability (including maybe preventing other potential launchings from others, to ensure a sufficiently supressed daily figure).

Anyway, though time 'features', insofar as daily counts (and, as a hidden variable, the matter of balloon longevity, which could change things drastically if prior ones did not actually vanish between one day and the next but actually permanently accumulated) and "over time" no longer is mentioned (whoever rewrote that bit). 82.132.245.112 09:58, 26 June 2025 (UTC)