Is anybody participating in the Climate modeling effort on BOINC?

http://bbc.cpdn.org/

Maybe it'll sway the Global Warming debate one way or the other

It's got to be said though, this one has the longest work units I've ever seen. 160 years of climate, which apparently will take most machines about 3-4 months to complete.

no- because I don't believe in the premise of man-made global warming. An an amateur astronomer I have seen the evidence that shows a direct corelation between solar activity and global warming. We are still in an ice age because glaciers still exist on the earth. In paleological times, tropical zones extended all the way to +/- 40 degrees lattitude.

In the last 40 years we have also had increased solar activity. The sun has many cycles. Most people are familiar with the 11 year cycle, but there are also bigger cycles. Stars of the sun's same class go through expansion and contraction cycles on bigger scales. The sun also has a 40 year cycle and even bigger cycles. When the sun swells, the earth gets hotter.

Nothing has a greater effect on climate than the sun. Yes, mankind may not be helping much, but his impact is insignificant compared to a star.

Actually, the science doesn't back that claim Tedster. In fact, the science doesn't back either claim. It says only that there are natural variations in global climate, and that at the moment we're pushing it hard as well. It shows a substantial spike in tempreture since the dawn of industrialisation as a result of greenhouse gasses, and it can bve nothing else as far as they can tell

What science says is that humans HAVE warmed the earth, but that they don't know if it's because of runaway global warming, or if we've just warmed the planet a little, and it'll level out roughly where we are, or if in fact the weather will simply adapt and return to normal.

The experiment doesn't hope to proove global warming - it hopes to look at how the climate will change, and answer the unanswered questions (mainly that of whether it's GW as people understand it, or GW as a short spell of warmth, or perhaps not at all.

However, there's no doubt that humans have had an effect on climate - whatever it's been and however significant it's been.

climate change scientists already know about how solar and volcanic activity affects the climate, and their computer modelling of it over the last thosand years matches the climate we've actually had pretty well, untill the mid 19th centurey when it spikes severely. They're just trying to explain the spike. Current antartic evidence shows that the climate is currrently warmer than it has been for 10,000 years. What the scientists REALLY want to know is not just whether or not it's global warming, but wherther or not it's normal, and where it's going.

Whatever the outcome, it's still a worthy cause, being that a particular outcome isn't expected. it comes out with whatever it comes out with, and if one side of the debate doesn't like it, then so be it. It could just as easily go either way. One fact is hard to argue with, which is that for whatever reason, our climate IS changing, and we don't know how it's going to go.

during the 19th century we had major solar activity. I have heard the agruments and totally disagree with you.... I base 98% of global warming on solar activity.... I have seen the statistical and correlative charts..... in any case, man has only been on the earth a relatively short time and the sun will last another 5 billion years..... we're just going to have to adapt.