Simulate "The Day After Tomorrow" On Your PC

kpearson writes "climateprediction.net, a distributed computing project to predict Earth's climate 50 years from now, has a new add-on project to study THC slowdown (how climate might change as CO2 changes in the event of a decrease in the strength of the thermohaline circulation). This kind of rapid, extreme climate change is shown in the movie The Day After Tomorrow, in which New York City is treated to a 10,000-year-long ski season. Anyone can download the project's client software and participate in the simulation. climateprediction.net was previously mentioned in the September 13, 2003 article Distributed Computing and Climate Change." Clients are available for various varieties of Microsoft Windows, but none are listed for other OSes.

Comments

I'm confused about CO2 and the environment...

[Loco3KGT]

Clinton's administration said if our atmosphere became almost entirely CO2 the temperature would still be less than 25C :

"Scientists have been concerned with the greenhouse effect regarding not only the quality of life on Earth, but also its effect on other planets. Twenty-six million miles from Earth, in an orbit much closer to the Sun, Venus spins through space with a furnace-like surface temperature of more than 800o Fahrenheit (F) (426.5o Celsius [C]), which is much hotter than its proximity to the Sun would explain. Scientists used to believe that Venus fell victim to the greenhouse effect because 96 percent of its atmosphere is carbon dioxide, with nitrogen accounting for almost all the remainder [26]. It is now generally agreed within the planetary atmospheres community that carbon dioxide alone would lead to an average temperature of less than 25oC. The primary reason that Venus is warmer than this is the presence of sulfuric acid cloud cover over the entire planet, extending from about 50 kilometers to 70 kilometers from the surface."

from : http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/pubs_html/attf94_v2/c hap2.html

So doesn't that mean the only harm CO2 presents is that we can't breathe it? ... but CO2 is processed by plants so doesn't increased CO2 mean increased plant life which means reduced CO2 and increased O2? (assuming we stop destroying rain forests, etc)