Homework #1 Due 1/22

Watch the Water Cycle movie (3 min.) available at [http://watercycle.gsfc.nasa.gov/]. Provide a half-page scientific (not too scientific) narrative describing what is seen in the movie i.e. describe the main process (e.g. evaporation, transpiration, precipitation, infiltration, runoff…etc).

Due January 22^nd.

At dawn in a virtual earth-like world, the sun rises, lifting water from the land and sea until it is vapor in the sky where it condenses over this artificial landscape. The clouds darken as they become heavy with rain and the smoke from unseen virtual barbeque grills. These clouds roil as they gather over the unsuspecting homes of wealthy landowners and begin to return their water to the surface as precipitation: a steady rain over the plantations and snow high up the mountain.

Fed by this precipitation, ground water flows beneath the surface and back to the sea in a strange blue ray-traced granite pattern visible at the cutaway in the foreground of this scene. A counterflow can be seen underground where groundwater from inland mixes with groundwater from the sea. Soon, the mountains begin leaking as snowmelt seeps down from higher ground. While water runs off from the land, into the reservoir, then discharges to the sea, an ominous thunderhead waits in the distance.

Shortly after sunset, lightning bolts flash into the night, illuminating the soggy world below. They strike the residences of the wealthy but do no damage, as unlike real life, when animating three-dimensional models it is more difficult to destroy than to create. Then the sky clears as the starfield pattern rotates overhead.

— David Wagner 2007/01/22 14:57