Editing 1606: Five-Day Forecast
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| titletext = You know what they say--if you don't like the weather here in the Solar System, just wait five billion years. | | titletext = You know what they say--if you don't like the weather here in the Solar System, just wait five billion years. | ||
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==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
− | {{w|Weather forecasting}} is an extremely difficult task, even if it is only for five days. In numerical models, extremely small errors in initial values double roughly every five days for variables such as temperature and wind velocity. So most {{w|Meteorology#Meteorologists|meteorologists}} only | + | {{w|Weather forecasting}} is an extremely difficult task, even if it is only for five days. In numerical models, extremely small errors in initial values double roughly every five days for variables such as temperature and wind velocity. So most {{w| Meteorology#Meteorologists |meteorologists}} only provides us with a five day forecast. |
− | In this comic [[Randall]] takes this to the extreme by first showing a | + | In this comic [[Randall]] takes this to the extreme by first showing a [[Five-Day Forecast]] and then progressing to five-month, year, million, billion and finally trillion-year forecast. |
− | Since the first weather symbol is the same in all six rows, we must assume this indicates the weather today (and not tomorrow | + | Since the first weather symbol is the same in all six rows, we must assume this indicates the weather today (and not tomorrow on in a trillion year). It is first in the second panel that we have made the first jump according to the label. |
− | When moving past the five days, the | + | When moving past the five days, the weather is just a qualified guess based on the time of year. In a month it is Christmas as shown in the second panel of the second row. And then it is winter with January and February so snow is likely, but certainly not something that happens on all days of a winter month. |
− | + | When going for a yearly forecast it makes no sense at all. Is it the weather on a given day, or just a mean over a full year? But for these first three rows the weather symbols are all of the same three types. Sun, clouds and some kind of {{w|precipitation}}, rain or snow. And the temperature range from 21 to 44°F (-6.1 to 6.6°C), winter temperature. So it seems like it is the same time a year in the five-year forecast. | |
− | Then we go into the far future, jumping a million | + | Then we go into the far future, jumping a million year from panel to panel. But still the weather symbols stay the same. However, in 3 million years time aliens (or advanced humans) attack with energy beams from something looking like {{w| flying saucers}}. They are gone a million years later. The temperature range is still the same (except that it rises to 52°F or 11.1°C, a possible reference to global warming) in one panel. But then while the attack is going on the temperature rises to 275°F (135°C). |
− | Once we get to the billion-year mark it actually becomes more meaningful to try to predict the "weather". Because now we reach the times when the {{w|Sun}} begins to change. Although the Sun will continue to burn hydrogen for about 5 billion years yet (while in | + | Once we get to the billion-year mark it actually becomes more meaningful to try to predict the "weather". Because now we reach the times when the {{w|Sun}} begins to change. Although the Sun will continue to burn hydrogen for about 5 billion years yet (while in it's {{w|Sun#Main_sequence| main sequence|}}), it will still grow in diameter as it begins to exhaust it's supply of fuel. The core will contract to increase the temperature, and the outer layer will then compensate be expanding slightly. This is what is indicated in panel two and three where the color of the Sun changes towards red as the surface becomes less hot as it expands away from the center of the Sun. The temperature will rise on Earth as indicated in the panels (105°F = 40.5°C and 371°F = 188 °C). So in two billion years the temperature is hot enough that all the earth's oceans will have boiled away… Actually this will happen already in about [http://phys.org/news/2015-02-sun-wont-die-billion-years.html a billion years]. |
− | Then once there is {{w|Sun# | + | Then once there is {{w| Sun#After_core_hydrogen_exhaustion|no longer enough hydrogen}} the Sun will truly expand into a {{w|red giant}}. This should not happen until five billions years from now, but in the forecast it is indicated to happen already in three. Maybe this is Randall taking liberties to show what happens during this phase, which would not fit into a five-billion-years forecast. Alternatively it is just indicating how uncertain these kind of forecasts are, or a statement that we may not know for certain that it will take five not three billion years. |
− | Disregarding this, the fourth panel shows the temperature at | + | Disregarding this, the fourth panel shows the temperature at Earths position inside the red giant Sun. The color of the panel indicates that we are inside the Sun. The temperature is 71 million degrees Fahrenheit, (almost 40 million degrees Celsius). The current temperature of the center of the Sun is "only" 27 million degrees Fahrenheit (15 million degrees Celsius). And although that may rise by a factor ten during {{w| Stellar nucleosynthesis |helium fusion}} then that will only be at the very core and not out in the solar atmosphere reaching out to Earth Here the temperature would only be of the order of thousands of Fahrenheit, since the Suns outer temperature decreases as it increases it's diameter. So this panels temperature also makes little sense. |
− | The red giant phase only | + | The red giant phase only last half a million years, so a billion year after the Sun has been a red giant it's outer atmosphere will for sure have disappeared leaving only a {{w|white dwarf}} to cool down. Given Randall's version of this time schedule, then it will have had about a billion years to cool down, but would still likely be the brightest object in the sky as seen from where the Earth once was. It is not indicated in the last panel, where we just see other stars of the Galaxy. The temperature is down to that of the {{w|Cosmic microwave background |background radiation}}. Today this radiation has a temperature of 2.72548 Kelvin = -270.4245ºC = -454.7641ºF. So this is a few degree F colder than what is shown in the comic which states the temperature is -452ºF = 4.26 kelvin. This higher temperature may have been chosen to reflect that even the star light from other stars would increase the actual temperature. |
− | In the last panel with trillion years, we jump right past the | + | In the last panel with trillion years, we jump right past the Suns Red Giant phase, to a panel looking much like the one after five billions years with only other stars. Over the next three trillion years the stars becomes fewer and fewer and dimmer and dimmer as the run out of fuels and fewer new stars form. After four trillion years the background temperature even decreases one degree to -453ºF as the universe keeps expanding and the wave length of the radiation does the same (thus decreasing it's temperature). |
The title text is a play on comments referring to fast-changing weather on a more ordinary human timescale, such as Mark Twain's quip "If you don't like the weather in New England now, just wait a few minutes." | The title text is a play on comments referring to fast-changing weather on a more ordinary human timescale, such as Mark Twain's quip "If you don't like the weather in New England now, just wait a few minutes." | ||
− | A ten days forecast was used in [[1245: 10-Day Forecast]] | + | A ten days forecast was used in [[1245: 10-Day Forecast]]. |
==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
Line 42: | Line 40: | ||
:[A grey cloud.] | :[A grey cloud.] | ||
:41°F | :41°F | ||
− | :[A grey cloud with six lines of blue raindrops below.] | + | :[A grey cloud with six lines of blue raindrops below.] |
:36°F | :36°F | ||
:[A grey cloud in front of a yellow sun.] | :[A grey cloud in front of a yellow sun.] | ||
Line 48: | Line 46: | ||
:[A bright yellow sun.] | :[A bright yellow sun.] | ||
:44°F | :44°F | ||
+ | |||
:'''Your 5-month forecast''' | :'''Your 5-month forecast''' | ||
Line 60: | Line 59: | ||
:[A grey cloud.] | :[A grey cloud.] | ||
:35°F | :35°F | ||
+ | |||
:'''Your 5-year forecast''' | :'''Your 5-year forecast''' | ||
Line 72: | Line 72: | ||
:[A bright yellow sun.] | :[A bright yellow sun.] | ||
:41°F | :41°F | ||
+ | |||
:'''Your 5-million-year forecast''' | :'''Your 5-million-year forecast''' | ||
Line 84: | Line 85: | ||
:[A grey cloud in front of a yellow sun.] | :[A grey cloud in front of a yellow sun.] | ||
:40°F | :40°F | ||
+ | |||
:'''Your 5-billion-year forecast''' | :'''Your 5-billion-year forecast''' | ||
Line 93: | Line 95: | ||
:371°F | :371°F | ||
:[A pale yellow panel with no drawing.] | :[A pale yellow panel with no drawing.] | ||
− | :71 | + | :71.488.106°F |
:[A night sky with many bright stars.] | :[A night sky with many bright stars.] | ||
:-452°F | :-452°F | ||
+ | |||
:'''Your 5-trillion-year forecast''' | :'''Your 5-trillion-year forecast''' | ||
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{{comic discussion}} | {{comic discussion}} | ||
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[[Category:Comics with color]] | [[Category:Comics with color]] | ||
[[Category:Science]] | [[Category:Science]] | ||
[[Category:Space]] | [[Category:Space]] | ||
[[Category:Astronomy]] | [[Category:Astronomy]] | ||
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