The BBC's Distributed Climate Prediction

CongoJoe writes "The BBC has teamed up with Oxford University to conduct the world's most ambitious climate modeling experiment." From the article: "Trying to predict climate change is hard. There are lots of factors involved - air temperature, sea temperature and cloud cover all play a part - as do dozens of other variables. Therefore, there are a huge number of calculations involved ... Using a technique known as distributed computing, we're hoping to harness the power of thousands of PCs around the world. If 10,000 people sign up, we'll be faster than the world's biggest computer. And we're hoping to be even better than that."

Comments

Extra Power Consumption

[alanxyzzy]

I just happened to have the computer I installed the software on plugged into a Brennenstuhl PM230 power meter. With the client suspended, the computer draws 78W, running it draws 103W. 25W times 47,000 hosts is more than a megawatt!

Case/PSU: Asus TA-211
M/B: Asus K8V-X SE
CPU: AMD Sempron 2800+

Re:Only 10,000?

[Tx]

I suspect cpdn gets a lot more work out of each client. Rather than breaking the job into little work units like S@H, each client runs a complete simulation lasting hundreds of (simulated) years, and taking weeks of heavy cpu usage to complete. At least this was the case when I took part ages ago, it kept my cpu working very hard.

Re:I wonder what would happen

[artifex2004]

RTFA.
They explicitly tell you in the instructions (several times) that you should not leave your computer switched on any more than you would without the simulation. You should use your computer as normal, shutting it down when you don't need it.

Actually, the information isn't in the article. It's off in the FAQ. The 4-part instructions just say install it and sit back, too. :)

Re:Old news

[jazir1979]

I just downloaded and installed it on FC4, via their shell script, and it has a GUI that works just fine.