_oo##'9MMHb':'-,o_ .oH":HH$' ""' "' -\7*R&o_ .oHMMMHMH#9: "\bMMMMHo. dMMMMMM*""'`' .oHM"H9MM?. ,MMMMMM' "HLbd<|?&H\ JMMH#H' Contributing |MMMMM#b>bHb :MH ."\ to the Study `|MMMMMMMMMMMM& .:M:d-"|:b.. of 9MMMMMMMMMMMMM+ : "*H| - Climate &MMMMMMMMMMMMMH: . `LvdHH#d? Change `?MMMMMMMMMMMMMb : iMMMMMMH#b `"*"'"#HMMMMMM . . ,MMMMMMMMMMb\. {MMMMMH - |MMMMMMMMMMMMMMHb, `MMMMM| : |MMMMMMMMMMMMMMH' &MMMM, - `#MMMMMMMMMMMM |MMMM6- : `MMMMMMMMMM+ ]MMMT/ . `MMMMMMMP" HMM*` - |MMMMMH' `Wizbone `05 ,M#'- '. :MMMH| .- . |MM - ` . `#?.. . ..' -. _. .- '-|.#qo__,,ob=~~-'' For many years now, a substantial portion of the scientific community has acknowledged that the Earth's weather patterns have been changing. Many of them can't agree on what exactly is happening, but the overall consensus is that the global levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are increasing in our atmosphere at an alarming rate. It is believed that this is a result of our abuse of fossil fuels. Despite many lame attempts at controlling the release of these greenhouse gases by the developed world - the most recent being the controversial Kyoto accord - very little progress has been made. While the developed world has reduced the number of particulate matter being released, most of the manufacturing that was the worst contributor to this has simply been relocated to Asian third- world nations, most of which have no environmental standards, or no means to enforce them. This obviously solves little, as pollution doesn't recognize borders. Mainstream media is slowly beginning to address the issue, but for the time being, still very little is known about the normal patterns and trends of our planet, let alone the effects humans may be having on it. Nonetheless, there will be a great deal of discussion about the recent findings from a group of individuals running one of the largest climate models yet, ClimatePrediction.net. Organized and managed primarily by the University of Oxford, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and The Open University, all based in the UK, it is joint-sponsored by the Natural Environment Research Council, and the UK e-Science Programme. The goal of the project is to "improve methods to quantify uncertainties of climate projections and scenarios, including long-term ensemble simulations using complex models". For those of you who have never heard of this, here is CP.net's explanation of what a climate model is: "What is a climate model? Climate models are numerical representations of various parts of the Earth's climate system. There are two ways of looking at this. In some respects, scientists are trying to reduce the complex behaviour of the climate down to a set of mathematical equations, in the hope that they can then begin to understand the processes that are going on. This is true especially of fairly simple models. In the case of state of the art General Circulation Models (GCMs) such as the one used in the climateprediction.net experiment, it is more a case of trying to represent everything, even if things then get so complicated that we can't always understand what's going on. The equations are tweaked, within reasonable boundaries, so that the model does as well as possible at producing past and current climates (compared to archived observations). It can then be used to try to predict what the climate is going to do in the future. GCMs try to simulate as much as possible about the climate system: the incoming and outgoing radiation, the way the air moves, the way clouds form and precipitation falls, the way the ice sheets grow or shrink, etc. They are frequently (as in the model we use) coupled to a representation of the ocean. They may take into account how the vegetation on the Earth's surface changes. Critically, they try to calculate how all these different parts of the climate system interact, and how the feedback processes work. This is why the "best" estimates of future climate come from general circulation models, rather than simplified models." [taken from http://www.climateprediction.net/science/model-intro.php] CP.net just published its first findings on the 27th of January of this in the publication Nature (http://www.nature.om/nature). A copy of this paper can be found at http://www.climateprediction.net/science/pubs/nature_first_results.pdf, but the most startling finding is that these models have found a temperature increase between 1.9 and 11.5 degrees Celsius over this century. According to their paper, most models clustered around the 3.4 degree mark. This is still within the general consensus of the scientific community on global temperature increase. Typically scientists didn't believe the temperature would increase more than 6 degrees, but according to the cp.net study, the temperature could still reach 11.5 degrees above normal, which would be more than catastrophic. The cp.net model conclusion has ruffled some feathers in the scientific community, but in order for them to refine their study and actually publish more specific conclusions on the effect we're having on our environment, they need to continue building and studying models. Hopefully, as the results become more sophisticated, the world will see what will happen if our current disregard for the environment continues. The best part about the Climate Prediction project is that YOU can help. CP.net uses the BOINC, which is the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing. BOINC is a small application which allows projects such as ClimatePredictor and SETI@home to take advantage of the immeasurable unused CPU cycles available on personal computers all over the world. BOINC is free to use, opensource, small, and supported by a variety of platforms. It can be set up to stop using cpu cycles during user activity, so it will never interfere with your personal computer experience. I strongly encourage anyone reading this to take advantage of this opportunity to contribute to discovering how we're messing with our climate. This is everyone's planet, and for the sake of ourselves and future generations, we need to try to protect it. CP.net will help us learn what steps we should take to do this. Follow this link to create a BOINC account: http://climateapps2.oucs.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/create_account_form.php It's important you give a legitimate email account as you will be emailed your unique BOINC Project ID. Once you've recieved your confirmation email. Follow the instructions contained within to activate your account. Once you've done this, follow this link to download and install a client for your operating system (Windows, Linux, Apple): http://climateapps2.oucs.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/download.php Once the application is installed, it will prompt you for the project URL (http://www.climateprediction.net) and your unique ID. This is all you need to do. Depending on your preferences, it may start computing immediately, or it will wait until your machine has no user activity. At this point, you may also choose to join a team. I've created a team called "Last Place!" (http://climateapps2.oucs.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/team_display.php?teamid=1657) But you may also want to create a team for you and your friends. Whichever you choose, team or no team, you're still contributing to a good cause and should give yourself a quick pat on the back. End. 2005/01/30