Into the Eye of a Hurricane

NOAA/ESRL

Surfdaddy Orca is Editor-in-Chief of The Seventh Sun and an avid SL surfer. He did the initial site map for the Diegoland sim and enjoys building and scripting.	Meteroa is an educational sim hosted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL)

METEROA — The engines roar and the propellers start to spin.  The P3 Orion, a land-based, long range anti-submarine warfare (ASW) patrol aircraft, says “United States Dept of Commerce” on the side.  You are sitting inside the plane as it starts to take off and fly toward a spinning hurricane.  A cultured female British voice comes over your Heads Up Display (HUD).

“You are now entering the eye of the hurricane.  It is usually calm here.  We’ll now turn and enter the leading edge of the hurricane.”

So begins an innovative Second Life climate and weather simulation.  Welcome to Meteroa, the educational sim by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL).

Meteroa, derived from the Greek adjective meteoras, means “suspended in the air.”  The hurricane is only part of the fun.  There is a sea life submarine ride, a tsunami, a demonstration of a real-time temperature map with narration by Exploratorium Chief Scientist Paul Doherty, and a melting glacier.

The recent Katrina hurricane, the massive tsunami near Indonesia, and Al Gore’s academy-award nominated film “An Inconvenient Truth” have brought an acute public awareness of global climate and weather.  NOAA/ESRL’s sponsorship of a Second Life sim, along with Aimee Weber’s (and others) LSL scripting, have produced a remarkable 3D educational experience that will keep students coming back for more.

Aimee herself says: “The Second Life entrance of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) has brought all the fun and excitement you’ve naturally come to expect of fluid dynamics! In case you haven’t been on the any submarine rides lately, NOAA is the governmental agency tasked with researching the oceans, climate, weather, and anything else having to do with gigantic masses of air and water.”

And, speaking of submarine rides, the one on Meteroa is a doozy.  Killer whales and dolphins swim along the surface as your submarine slowly submerges into an underwater wonderland of rays, skates, jelly fish, brightly colored tropicals, corals, and jagged rocks.  You are encouraged to “jump off” anytime and expore the depths in more detail.

The melting glacier is much more sobering.  As reported by Rik Riel, a large thermometer stands in front of a glacier, showing changes in global temperature from year to year since 1990.  Extrapolating on current trends, you click on markers for the years 2000, 2025, 2050, 2075 and 2100.

As the years go on, three things occur: the temperature rises, the glacier melts, and the water level rises.  By 2100 its up to your knees.  You have to wonder how many destroyed villages and lives that equals.

You don’t have to stand in water up to your knees to appreciate The Real Time Weather simulation. You walk directly onto a large 3D map of the United States with little clouds (some with rain or snow falling) that are gradually drifting across the continent with the prevailing winds. There are numerous scripted weather stations dotting the map that collect real-time METAR data from NOAA at 8-minute intervals.

The stations decode and render into models various types of cloud cover and precipitation models. The models also include special weather conditions such as thunderstorms and tornadoes. Temperature is represented by warmer and cooler shades of color.

Perhaps the most convincing (and once again sobering) simulations is the tsunami. You hear a voice on your HUD (Aimee Weber again, it turns out) describe the precise interaction of tectonic and oceanic forces that lead up to a tsunami. Suddenly the water starts to churn. Then, just as suddenly, the water recedes, deceptively leading you to think it’s merely lowtide. Think again. A wall of water 6 stories high is about to crash down on you.

Rik Riel again reports: “There’s no where to run, and nothing that can stop it. The water washes over you, destroying everything in its path. All that is left is rubble as the water slowly recedes.”

And so the adventure ends, just as if you were able to jump in and then out of the Discovery Channel. You started out flying into a hurricane. You took a submarine ride, watched a glacier melt, visited a real-time weather map of the United States, and ended up wishing you had a jet-powered surfboard to escape a tsunami. An inconvient truth indeed. Well, note to self: next time remember to bring a wetsuit and a life raft!

NOAA Virtual Island: Meteroa (176,160,26)