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NASA Releases Free Global Climate Model Software

Posted by samzenpus on from the hurricane-in-the-classroom dept.

ink_polaroid writes "NASA has released its Educational Global Climate Model (EdGCM) for high school and university desktop computers. The software incorporates a 3-D climate model developed at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), New York. It wraps complex computer modeling programs with a graphical interface familiar to most PC users."

4 of 224 comments (clear)

  1. Simulated doomsday? by sjrstory · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It would be pretty cool to simulate enviromental doomsday scenarios such as the one seen in the movie The Day after Tomorrow.

  2. Nice, if the curriculum allowed for it... by 2advanced.net · · Score: 5, Interesting

    EdGCM permits teachers and students to explore the fundamentals of climate science utilizing tools identical to those used in major climate research programs. Many simple climate experiments are possible (e.g. How does the sun warm the planet?), but, it is also possible to conduct in-depth investigations of current events, in near real-time, as they are being studied by climate scientists

    That's great. One of my favorite software packages in the world is Nasa's World Wind, but when I tried to show it to my parents (both high school science teachers), the reaction was the same: we don't have time or computers to use this.

    The state of public education (at least in California) is so poor that this is going to be great for college-level students, but much of the target audience will be left out due to budgets and a testing-centric curriculum.
    --
    2advanced.net - Business Quality Hosting
  3. Terraforming mars by j1m+5n0w · · Score: 3, Interesting

    More interesting would be simulating the terraforming of mars. Could we raise the temperature sufficiently by introducing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere? How about if we used a massive orbital mirror? Or maybe we could grind one of the moons into dust and make an artificial ring to increase ambient light. Inquiring minds want to know.

  4. For those who are interested... by StarfishOne · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You might also want to check out the following (Distributed Computing) project:

    ClimatePrediction.net