250,000 People Helped with Climate Change Study

Posted on Sat Jan 20 2007

By: Ashley Mikulik in Climate Change, Environment, Science & Technology

Over 250,000 people recently downloaded a software program from climateprediction.net and helped calculate how slight variations could affect climate change predictions. Participants simply left there computer on and the program made its calculations and sent the results back to the central server. It took about 3 months to calculate on an average PC.

By farming the work out to other computers, more variables can be tested, and in some cases, can get the job done faster. A similar technique is used in the SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) program which searches for signs of extra-terrestrial life in space.

The end result of this climate study was a prediction that the temperature in Britain could rise 2.5 degrees by 2050 and 4 degrees by 2080.

Source: CBC.ca, Fantastic' response to online climate-change experiment, January 19.

When it Comes to Climate Change, Not All Trees Are Created Equal

Could wind changes cause glacial climate change?