Right away you get the feeling that something’s not quite right with these folks when you read their news feed which says:

“Fate of the World” game released

weatherathome

“weatherathome” is supported by the Guardian.

Please join this exciting new experiment and help scientists understand in more detail than ever before what may lie ahead for the weather in certain parts of the world.

Watch project scientist Suzanne Rosier describing “weatherathome” here.

You’ve heard of climate change, but what does that actually mean for the weather in the region where you live? Could it be that you are going to see an increase in the number of damaging weather events? Or could the weather actually be getting nicer? You now have the opportunity to help scientists find the answers to questions like these, by taking part in the climateprediction.net “weatherathome” experiment.

Temperature over the Western US – a sample of the sort of information “weatherathome” will return.

Since the launch of climateprediction.net in 2003, hundreds of thousands of volunteers have generously 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 – a huge thank you to everyone who has taken part! Scientists continue to pore over the masses of data you have so kindly returned to the project and, indeed, will continue doing so for some time to come.

Cloud cover over Southern Africa – the regional model will give detailed information about clouds at various levels.

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.

Surface pressure over Europe – regional models such as this are needed to investigate changes to weather systems.

A regional model such as this needs to be supplied with climate information such as temperature, winds and humidity, around its edges, so that it still feels the influence of the weather in other parts of the world. In “weatherathome”, this will be achieved by embedding the regional model within a ‘driving’ global model. So if you choose to take part in “weatherathome” you will essentially be running ‘two models in one’ on your computer.

Surface temperature in the global model – you can watch this progressing as your model runs.

Initially, three target regions are now available for download: the Western US, Southern Africa and Europe. We chose these because the majority of climateprediction.net participants (to date) live in Europe and the US, and because Southern Africa is a region thought to be particularly vulnerable to climate change. We hope, in time, to be able to extend the experiment to many other regions around the globe. Your suggestions will be welcome!

Click the buttons to see some sample pictures from these initial three regions:

You can find details about the planned experiments here.

To accompany the experiment we are putting together some online information packs. Available at climateeducation.net, these are aimed at anyone interested in learning about the basics of climate science, how modelling is done and how to go about interpreting the results of experiments such as climateprediction.net and “weatherathome”.

Please go to our registration page, which will allow you to select your preferred region. Full instructions are available there.

Where in the world are we? The locations of currently active climateprediction.net participants.