Since the launch of climateprediction.net in 2003, hundreds of thousands of volunteers have donated their computers’ spare processing power to run state-of-the-art global climate models and help scientists learn more about the range of climates we are most likely to encounter in the twenty-first century. The results have been tremendous.
Such global models can tell us a lot, but they are still not detailed enough to tell us much about the potential changes to regional and local weather. To learn about these we need to use a model which is so detailed in its coverage that it can only afford to cover a limited area of the globe – a ‘regional climate model’. In this new “weatherathome” experiment, climateprediction.net has partnered with the Met. Office, with support from Microsoft Research, to develop a regional climate model that is available for download and running on personal computers anywhere.
