Volunteer@Home

This week the first results from the climateprediction.net BBC climate change experiment were published in Nature Geoscience. The experiment, first launched in 2006, represents the first multi thousand member ensemble of simulations using a complex coupled atmosphere-ocean climate model, and addresses some of the uncertainties that previous forecasts, using simpler models or only a few dozen simulations, may have over-looked. Results from the experiment suggest that a global warming of 3 degrees Celsius by 2050 is as equally plausible as a rise of 1.4 degrees (relative to the 1961-1990 average). This range is derived from the range of simulations in the ensemble that accurately reproduce observed temperature changes over the last 50 years.

The results suggest that the world is very likely to cross the '2 degrees barrier' at some point this century if emissions continue unabated, and that those planning for the impacts of climate change need to consider the possibility of warming of up to 3 degrees (above the 1961-1990 average) by 2050 even on a mid-range emission scenario. This is a faster rate of warming than most other models predict.

We would like to thank all the participants involved in the BBC climate change experiment for their continued support to the project!

Links:

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo1430.html

Media Coverage:

Temperatures could rise by 3C by 2050, models suggest, BBC News online, 25/03/2012. Global temperatures could rise by 1.4-3.0C (2.5-5.4F) above levels for late last century by 2050, a computer simulation has suggested. Almost 10,000 climate simulations were run on volunteers' home computers. The projections, published in Nature Geoscience, are somewhat higher than those from other models. Myles Allen of the School of Geography and Environment and Department of Physics, Oxford University, principal investigator of climateprediction.net, said other climate modelling groups' data did not "set out to explore the full range of uncertainty, which is why studies like ours are needed."

10,000 climate models predict significant global temperature rise, Wired.co.uk, 26/03/2012, Duncan Geere. A project to model the earth's atmosphere run on almost 10,000 home computers predicts that the temperature of the atmosphere will rise between 1.4C and 3C by 2050. 'It's only by running such a large number of simulations - with model versions deliberately chosen to display a range of behaviour - that you can get a handle on the uncertainty present in a complex system such as our climate,' said Dan Rowlands of Oxford University's Department of Physics, lead author of a paper describing the research in Nature Geoscience. 'Our work was only possible because thousands of people donated their home computer time to run these simulations.'

An even warmer future ahead, Discovery News (US), 26/03/2012, Emily Sohn.

Earth warming faster than expected, ScienceNOW (US), 25/03/2012, Sid Perkins.

Study: Global temperatures could rise 5 degrees by 2050, USA Today online (blog), 25/03/2012.

Fears of 3C global warming by 2050, The Press Association, 25/03/2012.

Study: Global temps may jump 5 degrees by 2050, Azcentral.com 26/03/2012.

Temperatures 'could rise by 3C by 2050', News Track India, 26/03/2012.

Temperatures ‘could rise by 3°C by 2050’, The Hindu (India), 26/03/12.

Scientists issue emission warning, Morning Star, 26/03/2012.

Fears of 3C global warming by 2050, Daily Express online, 25/03/2012, Unattributed.

Fears of 3C global warming by 2050, Evening Standard online, 25/03/2012, Unattributed.

Climatewire - http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2012/03/26/3

IRI News - http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95182/CLIMATE-CHANGE-A-three-degree-warme...

Stories with no Oxford mention:

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/894217-rising-temperatures-spark-irreversibl...

http://www.scotsman.com/news/runaway-climate-change-this-century-scienti...

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/onairhighlights/glo...

In the summer 2010 Western Russia was hit by an extraordinary heat wave, with the region experiencing by far the warmest July since records began. Whether or not this event was caused (in parts) by anthropogenic climate change has been a source controversy. Dole et al. (2011) reported that the 2010 Russian heat wave was "mainly natural in origin" whereas Rahmstorf and Coumou (2011) wrote that with a probability of 80% "the 2010 July heat record would not have occurred" without large-scale climate warming since 1980. Most of this large scale warming has been attributed to the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations. The latter study explicitly states that their results "contradict those of Dole et al. (2011)".

By using the results from the Weather At Home experiment we show that there is no substantive contradiction between these two papers. The same event can be both mostly internally-generated in terms of magnitude and mostly externally-driven in terms of the probability of such an event occurring. The difference in conclusion between these two papers illustrates the importance of specifying precisely what question is being asked. We argue you need to ask both questions, whether the magnitude was inside the natural variability and whether the frequency of such heatwaves to occur has changed. Our answer is that the magnitude of the heat wave was mainly natural in origin, but the possibility of such a heat wave occurring has increased by a factor of 3-4 times due to anthropogenic climate change.

Links:

http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2012/2012-10.shtml
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/21/climate-change-russian...

The server that receives completed work units for the EU region of the Weather@home project is suffering intermittent faults, resulting in failed uploads.

We will let participants know when we have more information on the likely time for completion.

On behalf of all the members of the CPDN team I should like to wish you all a very happy Christmas. It has been an eventful year at CPDN. Andy and I have spent most of it wrestling with hardware failures, software misconfigurations, storage issues etc. Throughout this period we've had pretty solid support from all of our volunteers who have crunched their way through over 100 billion CPU cycles, donating the equivalent of thousands of years of CPU time to climate science research. Thanks again, and see you in the New Year. Jonathan Miller CPDN SysAdmin

CPDN will be taken offline at 9.00 am GMT on Thursday 10 November 2011. This is to facilitate the relocation of our project servers. It is anticipated that the downtime will be for no longer than 48 hours, but the project should be considered 'at-risk' until noon on 14 November 2011 GMT.