Climateprediction.net under BOINC 4.16 Climateprediction.net, or CPDN, is a distributed computing project to investigate and reduce uncertainties in climate modelling. It aims to do this by running hundreds of thousands of different models (a large ensemble) using the donated idle time of ordinary personal computers, thereby leading to a better understanding of how models are affected by small changes in the many parameters known to influence the global climate. Anyone with a reasonable computer can join and help this project by running their own model. Image File history File links This is a screenshot of a copyrighted website, video game graphic, computer program graphic, television broadcast, or film. ...
Image File history File links This is a screenshot of a copyrighted website, video game graphic, computer program graphic, television broadcast, or film. ...
Distributed computing is an aspect of computer science that deals with the coordination of multiple computers in remote physical locations in order to accomplish a common objective or task. ...
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In physics, a statistical ensemble is a very large set of similar systems, considered all at once. ...
Parametrization within a climate model refers to the method of replacing processes that are too small-scale or complex to be physically represented in the model by a simplified process. ...
It is run primarily by Oxford University in England and has the most computing power and generated more data than any other climate modelling program. The University of Oxford, located in the city of Oxford in England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ...
Royal motto (French): Dieu et mon droit (Translated: God and my right) Englands location within the British Isles Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area – Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population – Total (mid-2004) – Total (2001 Census) – Density Ranked 1st UK...
Aims
 IPCC graphic of uncertainty ranges with various models over time. Climate prediction.net is aiming to reduce the ranges and produce better probability information. The aim of the Climateprediction.net project is to investigate the approximations that have to be made in state-of-the-art climate models (see "Modelling The Climate"). By running the model thousands of times (a 'large ensemble') the project hopes to find out how the model responds to slight tweaks to these approximations - slight enough to not make the approximations any less realistic. This will allow us to improve our understanding of how sensitive our models are to small changes and also to things like changes in carbon dioxide and sulphur cycle. This will allow us to explore how climate may change in the next century under a wide range of different scenarios. In the past estimates of climate change have had to be made using one or, at best, a very small ensemble (tens rather than thousands!) of model runs. By using your computers, we will be able to improve our understanding of, and confidence in, climate change predictions more than would ever be possible using the supercomputers currently available to scientists. Image File history File linksMetadata Ipcc_fig1-5. ...
Image File history File linksMetadata Ipcc_fig1-5. ...
In physics, a statistical ensemble is a very large set of similar systems, considered all at once. ...
Carbon dioxide is an atmospheric gas comprised of one carbon and two oxygen atoms. ...
Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ...
The Special Report on Emissions Scenarios was a report, prepared for the IPCC TAR, on future emission scenarios to be used for driving global circulation models to develop climate change scenarios. ...
The Climateprediction.net experiment should help to "improve methods to quantify uncertainties of climate projections and scenarios, including long-term ensemble simulations using complex models", identified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2001 as a high priority. Hopefully, the experiment will give decision makers a better scientific basis for addressing one of the biggest potential global problems of the 21st century. IPCC is science authority for the UNFCCC The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established in 1988 by two United Nations organizations, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to assess the risk of human-induced climate change. The Panel is open to all...
As shown in the graph above, the various models have a fairly wide distribution of results over time. For each curve, on the far right, there is a bar showing the final temperature range for the corresponding model version. As you can see and would expect, the further into the future the model is extended, the wider the variances between them. Roughly half of the variation depends on the future climate forcing scenario rather than uncertainties in the model. Any reduction in those variations whether from better scenarios or improvements in the models are wanted. Climateprediction.net is working on model uncertainties not the scenarios. Note: This Wikipedia article is a work in progress. ...
The crux of the problem is that we can run the model and see that x% of the models warm y degrees in response to z climate forcings, but how do we know x% is a good representation of the probability of that happening in the real world? The answer is that we are uncertain about this and want to improve the level of confidence that can be achieved. Some models will be good and some poor at producing past climate when given past climate forcings and initial conditions (a hindcast). It does make sense to trust the models that do well at recreating the past more than those that do poorly. Therefore models that do poorly will be downweighted. A Hindcast is a way of testing a model. ...
The experiments The different models that Climateprediction.net has and will distribute are detailed below in time order. Therefore anyone that has joined recently is likely to be running the Sulphur Cycle Model, or, if you started after February 2006, the Transient Coupled Model. A transient climate simulation is a mode of running a global climate model in which a period of time (typically 1850-2100) is simulated with continuously-varying concentrations of greenhouse gases so that the climate of the model represents a realistic mode of possible change in the real world. ...
- Classic Slab Model - The original experiment not under BOINC. See #The_Original_Model for further details. This model is used in the OU short course but can still be used by those unable to run the BOINC versions.
- ThermoHaline Circulation Model (THC) - an investigation of how the climate might change in the event of a decrease in the strength of the ThermoHaline Circulation. This experiment has now been closed to new participants as they have sufficient results. It was a four phase model totalling 60 model years. The first three phases were identical to the above Slab Models. The fourth phase imposed the effects of a 50% slowdown in the Thermohaline circulation. The Climateprediction.net page is here.
- Sulfur Cycle Model - an investigation of the effect of sulphate aerosols on the climate. The experiment will model sulfur in a number of compound forms including dimethyl sulfide and sulphate aerosols. This experiment is only being run under BOINC, and started in Aug 2005. See Sulphur page. This is a pre-requirement for the Hindcast. It is a 5 phase model totalling 75 model years. Timesteps are around 70% longer making it around 2.8 times longer than the initial slab model. The Climateprediction.net page is here.
- Coupled Spin-Up Model - inclusion of oceanic influences into the basic model in a more dynamic and realistic way than the initial Slab Model. This is a pre-requirement for the Hindcast. This is in progress but it is not planned to be publically released. The fastest 200 - 500 computers have been invited to join because it is a 200 year model and results are needed by February 2006 for the Transient coupled model launch.
- Transient coupled model. This comprises an 80 year Hindcast and an 80 year Forecast. The Hindcast is to test how well the models perform at recreating the climate of 1920 to 2000. This is also described as "experiment 2" on the strategy page. Launched February 2006 under BBC Climate Change Experiment branding. The forecast of what will happen in 2000 to 2080 follows the Hindcast and this is described as "experiment 3".
- High Resolution Model - this will be a Slab Model as normal followed by a period calculating at high resolution. It is unclear whether/when this will be launched.
The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) is a distributed computing infrastructure intended to be useful to fields beyond SETI. It is being developed by a team based at the University of California, Berkeley led by the project director of SETI@home, David Anderson. ...
The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) is a distributed computing infrastructure intended to be useful to fields beyond SETI. It is being developed by a team based at the University of California, Berkeley led by the project director of SETI@home, David Anderson. ...
General Name, Symbol, Number sulfur, S, 16 Chemical series nonmetals Group, Period, Block 16, 3, p Appearance lemon yellow Atomic mass 32. ...
Dimethyl sulfide causes that distinctive smell from your St. ...
2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
A Hindcast is a way of testing a model. ...
A Hindcast is a way of testing a model. ...
A transient climate simulation is a mode of running a global climate model in which a period of time (typically 1850-2100) is simulated with continuously-varying concentrations of greenhouse gases so that the climate of the model represents a realistic mode of possible change in the real world. ...
A transient climate simulation is a mode of running a global climate model in which a period of time (typically 1850-2100) is simulated with continuously-varying concentrations of greenhouse gases so that the climate of the model represents a realistic mode of possible change in the real world. ...
A Hindcast is a way of testing a model. ...
Prediction of future events is an ancient human wish. ...
A Hindcast is a way of testing a model. ...
This BOINC project is a joint venture between the UK Met Office, the BBC and Oxford University. ...
A Hindcast is a way of testing a model. ...
History
 A BOINC distributed computing project Myles Allen first thought about the need for large ensembles in 1997 but was only introduced to the success of SETI@home in 1999. The first funding proposal in April 1999 was rejected as utterly unrealistic. Image File history File links Boinc. ...
Image File history File links Boinc. ...
The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) is a distributed computing infrastructure intended to be useful to fields beyond SETI. It is being developed by a team based at the University of California, Berkeley led by the project director of SETI@home, David Anderson. ...
Dr Myles R Allen is head of the Climate Dynamics group at Oxford Universitys Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics Department. ...
In physics, a statistical ensemble is a very large set of similar systems, considered all at once. ...
1997 (MCMXCVII in Roman) is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
SETI@home logo SETI@home (SETI at home) is a grid computing (distributed computing in the projects own terminology) project using Internet-connected computers, hosted by the Space Sciences Laboratory, at the University of California, Berkeley, in the United States. ...
1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ...
Following a presentation at the World Climate Conference in Hamburg in September 1999 and a commentary in Nature entitled Do it yourself climate prediction in October 1999, thousands signed up to this supposedly imminently available program. The Dot Com bust did not help and the project realised they would have to do most of the programming themselves rather than outsourcing. The world climate conferences are a series of international meetings focussing on climate change. ...
Alster Lake at dusk Hamburg is the second largest city in Germany and with the Hamburg Harbour, its principal port. ...
1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ...
Nature is one of the oldest and most reputable scientific journals, first published on 4 November 1869. ...
1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ...
Dot-com (also dotcom or redundantly dot. ...
It was launched September 12, 2003 and on September 13, 2003 the project exceeded the capacity of the Earth Simulator to become the world's largest climate modelling facility. September 12 is the 255th day of the year (256th in leap years). ...
2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
September 13 is the 256th day of the year (257th in leap years). ...
2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
ESC cabinets The Earth Simulator (ES) was the fastest supercomputer in the world from 2002 to 2004, located at the Earth Simulator Center (ESC) in Kanazawa-ku (ward), Yokohama-shi, Japan. ...
The 2003 launch only offered a Windows "classic" client. On 26th August 2004 a BOINC client was launched which supported Windows, Linux and Mac OS X clients. Both will continue to be available for a number of years. 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Microsoft Windows is a series of popular proprietary operating environments and operating systems created by Microsoft for use on personal computers and servers. ...
The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) is a distributed computing infrastructure intended to be useful to fields beyond SETI. It is being developed by a team based at the University of California, Berkeley led by the project director of SETI@home, David Anderson. ...
Tux is the official Linux mascot. ...
Mac OS X is the operating system that is included with all currently shipping Apple Macintosh computers in the education, the consumer, and in the business markets. ...
A thermohaline circulation slowdown experiment was launched in May 2004 under the classic framework to co-incide with the film The Day After Tomorrow. This program can still be run but the scientific analysis has been completed (still being written up into a thesis) with no further planned research. The thermohaline circulation is a term for the global density-driven circulation of the oceans. ...
Climate. ...
2004 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December Deaths in May • 28 Gerald Anthony • 27 Umberto Agnelli • 22 Richard Biggs • 20 Len Murray • 17 Tony Randall • 17 Ezzedine Salim • 9 Alan King • 9 Akhmad Kadyrov • 8(?) Nick Berg • 7 Waldemar Milewicz Other recent deaths Ongoing...
The Day After Tomorrow is a 2004 apocalyptic science-fiction film that dramatically depicts catastrophic effects of global warming and boasts high-end special effects as a strong point, although the science the story is based on has little mainstream credibility. ...
A Sulfur cycle model was launched in August 2005. These take even longer to run than the original. 2005 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December- → Deaths in August August 31: Michael Sheard August 26: Lord Fitt August 24: Jack Slipper August 24: Maurice Cowling August 24: Dr. Tom Pashby August 23: Brock Peters August 22: Lord Lane August 21: Robert Moog August...
By November 2005 completed results returned totals were 45914 classic models, 3455 thermohaline models, 85685 BOINC models and 352 sulphur cycle models. This represents over 6 million model years processed. Ongoing events • Abramoff-Reed gambling scandal • Al Jazeera bombing memo • Avian influenza (H5N1) outbreak • Black sites scandal • Conservative leadership race (UK) • Fuel prices • Irans nuclear program • Jilin chemical plant explosions • Kashmir earthquake • Malawi food crisis • Malaysian prisoner abuse scandal • New Delhi bombings investigation • Niger food crisis • North Indian cyclone...
In February 2006 the project moved on to more realistic climate models. A BBC Big Climate Change Experiment was launched attracting around 23000 participants in the first day. This is a transient climate simulation meaning that there is a realistic ocean for the first time. This allows the experiment to investigate changes in the climate response as the climate forcings are changed rather than just an equilibrium response to a significant change like doubling the carbon dioxide level. Therefore the experiment has now moved on to doing a hindcast of 1920 to 2000 as well as a forecast of 2000 to 2080. February-James Pattersons 5th book in the Womans Murder Club Series comes out; it is called The 5th Princess. ...
A transient climate simulation is a mode of running a global climate model in which a period of time (typically 1850-2100) is simulated with continuously-varying concentrations of greenhouse gases so that the climate of the model represents a realistic mode of possible change in the real world. ...
Note: This Wikipedia article is a work in progress. ...
Carbon dioxide is an atmospheric gas comprised of one carbon and two oxygen atoms. ...
Future plans include releasing a high resolution model.
Results to date The first results of the experiment were published in Nature in January 2005 and show climate sensitivities ranging from less than 2 °C to more than 11 °C (see abstract or full version or Explanation). Nature is one of the oldest and most reputable scientific journals, first published on 4 November 1869. ...
2005 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December- → Deaths in January • 29 Ephraim Kishon • 25 Philip Johnson • 23 Johnny Carson • 22 Parveen Babi • 20 Jan Nowak-Jeziorański • 17 Virginia Mayo • 17 Zhao Ziyang • 15 Ruth Warrick • 14 Rudolph Moshammer Recent deaths Ongoing events • Tsunami relief...
A degree Celsius (°C) is a unit of temperature named after the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius (1701-1744), who first proposed a similar system in 1742. ...
A degree Celsius (°C) is a unit of temperature named after the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius (1701-1744), who first proposed a similar system in 1742. ...
Explanation Climate sensitivity is defined as the equilibrium response of global mean temperature to doubling levels of carbon dioxide. Current levels of carbon dioxide are around 380 ppm and growing at a rate of 1.8 ppm per year compared with preindustrial levels of 280 ppm. Therefore doubling is an extreme change that does not happen rapidly. The experiment is carrying out this forcing more as a way of finding out about what the model does than about saying the outcomes are realistic. In IPCC reports, equilibrium climate sensitivity refers to the equilibrium change in global mean surface temperature following a doubling of the atmospheric (equivalent) CO2 concentration. ...
Climate sensitivities of greater than 5 °C are widely accepted as being catastrophic but are considered unlikely. The possibility of such high sensitivities being plausible given observations had been reported prior to the Climateprediction.net experiment but "this is the first time GCMs have produced such behaviour". A degree Celsius (°C) is a unit of temperature named after the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius (1701-1744), who first proposed a similar system in 1742. ...
Climate models use quantitative methods to simulate the interactions of the atmosphere, oceans, land surface, and ice. ...
Even the models with very high climate sensitivity were found to be "as realistic as other state-of-the-art climate models". The test of realism was done with a root mean square error test. This does not check on realism of seasonal changes and it is possible that more diagnostic measures may place stronger constraints on what is realistic. Better tests of realism are being worked on.
It is important to the experiment and the goal of obtaining a probability distribution function (pdf) of climate outcomes to get a very wide range of behavours even if only to rule out such behaviour as not realistic. Unless you start with the whole range of behaviours, you would not be able to have confidence that a pdf was reliable. Therefore it is good to see that models with climate sensitivity as high as 11 °C are included. More worrying is the lack of models with climate sensitivity of less than 2 °C. The sulfur cycle experiment is likely to extend the range downwards. In mathematics, a probability distribution assigns to every interval of the real numbers a probability, so that the probability axioms are satisfied. ...
Use in education There is an Open University short course and teaching material available for schools to teach subjects relating to climate and climate modelling. The Open University (OU) is the UKs open learning university, established in 1969. ...
The original model The original experiment is run with HadSM3, which is the atmosphere from the HadCM3 model but with only a "slab" ocean rather than a full dynamic ocean. This is faster (and requires less memory) than the full model, but lacks dynamical feedbacks from the ocean, which are incorporated into the full coupled-ocean-atmosphere models used to make projections of climate change out to 2100. HadCM3 (Hadley Centre Coupled Model, version 3) is a coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model (AOGCM) developed at the Hadley Centre and described by Gordon et al (2000) and Pope et al (2000). ...
HadCM3 (Hadley Centre Coupled Model, version 3) is a coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model (AOGCM) developed at the Hadley Centre and described by Gordon et al (2000) and Pope et al (2000). ...
Each downloaded model comes with a slight variation in the various model parameters. Parametrization within a climate model refers to the method of replacing processes that are too small-scale or complex to be physically represented in the model by a simplified process. ...
There is an initial "calibration phase" of 15 model years in which the model calculates the "flux correction"; extra ocean-atmosphere fluxes that are needed to keep the model ocean in balance (the model ocean does not include currents; these fluxes to some extent replace the heat that would be transported by the missing currents).
Then there is a "control phase" of 15 years in which the ocean temperatures are allowed to vary. The flux correction ought to keep the model stable, but feedbacks developed in some of the runs. There is a quality control check, based on the annual mean temperatures, and models which fail this check are discarded. Feedback is (generally) information about actions. ...
Then there is a "double CO2 phase" in which the CO2 content is instantaneously doubled and the model run for a further 15 years, which in some cases is not quite sufficient model time to settle down to a new (warmer) equilibrium. In this phase some models which produced physically unrealistic results were again discarded.
The quality control checks in the control and 2*CO2 phases were quite weak: they suffice to exclude obviously unphysical models but do not include (for example) a test of the simulation of the seasonal cycle; hence some of the models passed may still be unrealistic. Further quality control measures are being developed.
The temperature in the doubled CO2 phase is exponentially extrapolated to work out the equilibrium temperature. Difference in temperature between this and the control phase then gives a measure of the climate sensitivity of that particular version of the model. In IPCC reports, equilibrium climate sensitivity refers to the equilibrium change in global mean surface temperature following a doubling of the atmospheric (equivalent) CO2 concentration. ...
Visualisations Most distributed computing projects have screensavers to visually indicate what they are doing but this falls short of giving the impression that the participant is shown the result. In contrast, Climateprediction.net not only uses a built-in visualisation to show the climate of the world being modelled but it is interactive to show different aspects of climate and result graphs are available on the website. In addition, there are other advanced visualisation programs that allow the user to see more of what the model is doing, as well as compare it to what it did previously and other models. Many more graphs and maps can be created. A screensaver is a computer program originally designed to conserve the image quality of computer displays by blanking the screen or filling them with moving images or patterns when the computers are not in use. ...
The Climateprediction.net "Advanced Visualisation" progams in use are CPView and the IDL Advanced Visualisation. They will both do quite a lot of the same things. CPView was written by a participant, Martin Sykes. The Advanced Visualisation was written by Andy Heaps of the University of Reading (UK), and modified to work with the BOINC version by Tesella Support Services plc. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1012x596, 151 KB)CPView showing Precipitation (blue/green blobs), Pressure (contour lines), clouds (grey), Snow and Ice (white), and Temperature (colours). ...
Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1012x596, 151 KB)CPView showing Precipitation (blue/green blobs), Pressure (contour lines), clouds (grey), Snow and Ice (white), and Temperature (colours). ...
The University of Reading (pronounced Redding) is a university in the English town of Reading. ...
Only CPView allows you to look at unusual diagnostics (rather than the usual Temperature, Pressure, Rainfall, Snow, and Clouds). See Data Index. Up to 5 sets of data can be displayed on a map. It also has a wider range of functions like Max, Min, further memory functions, and other features.
The Advanced Visualisation has functions for graphs of local areas and over 1 day 2 days and 7 days (as well as the more usual graphs of season and annual averages which both packages do). There are also Latitude - Height plots and Time - Height plots.
The download size is much smaller for CPView and CPView works with Windows 98. Windows 98 (codename Memphis) is a graphical operating system released on June 25, 1998 by Microsoft. ...
See also A list of distributed computing projects. ...
Climate models use quantitative methods to simulate the interactions of the atmosphere, oceans, land surface, and ice. ...
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Distributed computing is an aspect of computer science that deals with the coordination of multiple computers in remote physical locations in order to accomplish a common objective or task. ...
The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) is a distributed computing infrastructure intended to be useful to fields beyond SETI. It is being developed by a team based at the University of California, Berkeley led by the project director of SETI@home, David Anderson. ...
In physics, a statistical ensemble is a very large set of similar systems, considered all at once. ...
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