Climateprediction.net: A Global Community for Research in Climate Physics

The climateprediction.net project is undertaking climate research by harnessing spare computer cycles volunteered by businesses and members of the public. It is running a massive ensemble of climate simulations using a state-of-the-art climate model with the aim of quantifying the uncertainties in predictions of future climate change. Such a probabilistic forecast will support and improve decision-making in government and industry. The computational design builds and expands on the concepts of distributed computing, as demonstrated by projects such as SETI@home, but along with higher computational demands comes a much greater requirement and desire to involve participants in the details of the research. Issues of collaborative learning, educational tools, and participant involvement therefore form some of the core activities.