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New Climate Change Warning

Posted by samzenpus on from the getting-warmer-every-day dept.

sebFlyte writes "A new grid computing climate research project, climateprediction.net, has come up with its first major results, and they're really not good news for the planet according to the BBC. The simulations suggest that over the next hundred years we could see average rises of average temperatures of up to 11K, more than twice what was previously thought."

6 of 1,023 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Crichton novel- State of Fear by IvyMike · · Score: 4, Informative
    Anyone else read Michael Crichton's latest novel State of Fear? The scientists at RealClimate read it; they're not impressed. For the lazy, here's the conclusion:
    In summary, I am a little disappointed, not least because while researching this book, Crichton actually visited our lab and discussed some of these issues with me and a few of my colleagues. I guess we didn't do a very good job. Judging from his reading list, the rather dry prose of the IPCC reports did not match up to the some of the racier contrarian texts. Had RealClimate been up and running a few years back, maybe it would've all worked out differently...
  2. Re:HOWTO: give science a bad name. by thogard · · Score: 4, Informative

    Its not the humans getting too hot thats going to be the problem.

    Many fish in the Pacific ocean hatch out of eggs on the great barrier reef. That reef's eco system is tired into specific temperature bands and certain fish breed in specific parts of it. There is a very delicate balance in the food chain that does go away with slight changes. The last 10 years has seen a major drop in the number of young fish that hatch and that means there are fewer fish in the ocean to feed humans.

    Also don't forget water. If you increase a forest's temperature by about 5 degrees, you double its risk of forest fire. If the risk is high enough you end up with a former forest that can't recover after fires. Forest hold a massive amount of water and are a major part of the local water cycle.

    The areas you mentioned can only support that many people because of good transportation and the fact there is a huge river to pump water from. The great salt lake is getting much smaller very quickly and its local evaporation and local rain is a source of a great deal of the ground water. That local water cycle provides a buffer that helps keep the climate bearable.

  3. Help climateprediction.net! by miope · · Score: 5, Informative

    The climates models are computed using the BOINC platform (distributed computing in your PC, similar to SETI, etc.).

    Please, help the project donating your idle CPU cycles, go to: the homesite of the project and download the client.

    The client (BOINC) supports Linux, Windows, MAC OS, etc.

  4. Re:First test of this distributed model by chickanmonkey · · Score: 5, Informative
    From climateprediction.net Introduction to climate modelling

    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).

    I really can't beleave you give them so little credit as to think they would overlook something so bleading obvious as to test the model before using it. Do you discount everyone you disagree with this easily.

  5. Re:You have to prioritize by metamatic · · Score: 5, Informative
    Is he worth hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives? Because that's how many his men have killed since he was in power.

    And guess what? We killed ten of thousands ourselves "liberating" them, and now the civilian death rate is worse than it was under Saddam.

    And they didn't just die from bombings, we're talking rape and torture. And no, not the kind of torture where people have sex in front of you and make you undress, but the kind where things are shoved up your ass that don't belong in your ass, where you are slowly killed, you know, real torture.

    You mean like the Iraqi teenager who was seen in Abu Ghraib, lying on the floor with his anus bleeding while US troops discussed sodomizing him with metal objects? I guess that story didn't get reported on FOX News, huh?

    --
    GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
  6. Re:First test of this distributed model by Jim+Logajan · · Score: 4, Informative

    It seems neither you nor the person(s) who modded you up didn't know that the researchers actually used the method you proposed to select the best models. The AFP story on Yahoo, http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=15 12&e=6&u=/afp/scienceenvironment/, states that "Once the first batch of results was obtained, the researchers selected those models that had simulated the past climate accurately. These best-performing models were then asked to predict how much the Earth would warm after CO2 concentrations had doubled from the pre-industrial level of 280 parts per million (ppm)."