Computers are being used to help better understand the causes and
effects of Global Warming, and the role that human interferance with the
planets envrionmental system causes or contributes to global warming.
#--------------------------------------------
*Global Warming Studies Demand More Compute Power*
With the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
<http://www.ipcc.ch/> 4th Assessment Report, even skeptics are
acknowledging that global warming is heating up.
According to the 4th Assessment Report
<http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/WG1AR4_SPM_PlenaryApproved.pdf>, we
can expect rising oceans, warmer oceans, sea ice reduction, warmer
winters, and the like, all thanks to human-derived greenhouse gases that
are playing havoc with our climate. The 2007 report will be presented in
four phases during the year, with the first phase focusing on physical
evidence of global change
"We are now seeing, not merely predicting, effects of greenhouse warming
on a scale and in ways that were not observable before," said Gabriele
Hegerl, associate research professor at Duke University's Nicholas
School of the Environment and Earth Sciences
<http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/>, who also co-authored a summary of the
report for policymakers. Hegerl, a coordinating lead author of the IPCC
report's chapter on "Understanding and Attributing Climate Change," goes
on to say that "We've studied improved observations from land, sea and
space, as well as better temperature reconstructions covering the last
1,000 years. Understanding the observations is really what this all is
about. For instance, looking at the patterns of change in 20th-century
temperatures, we can now distinguish between changes caused by
greenhouse gases, man-made aerosols, variability in solar radiation and
major volcanic eruptions."
As you might expect all of this obervation and modeling requires
computing power -- and lots of it. To that end, the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration <http://www.noaa.gov/> (NOAA) has activated
its newest weather and climate supercomputers, increasing the
computational might used for climate and weather forecasts by 320
percent. The IBM machines process 14 trillion calculations per second at
maximum performance and ingest more than 240 million global observations
daily. These computers also will process data from Constellation
Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate
<http://www.cosmic.ucar.edu/> (COSMIC) satellites, a series of six
satellites launched in 2006.
"Better physics, better models, better data, and faster and more
powerful supercomputing are the foundation for making better weather and
climate forecasts," said Conrad C. Lautenbacher, undersecretary of
commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator."
"One of the most fascinating things is that we see that changes have
already happened or are happening now in more climate variables than
just temperature," says Hegerl. "For instance, there have been observed
changes in ocean temperatures, global rainfall and in circulation of the
atmosphere. We now are beginning to understand that these changes occur
at least partly in response to anthropogenic influences on climate. This
allows us to better evaluate model simulations, which do simulate
aspects of these changes, although not as successfully as they simulate
changes in temperature."
http://www.ddj.com/blog/portal/archives/2007/02/global_warming.html
or
http://tinyurl.com/3yma5v
#-------------------------------------------
Regards,
LelandJ
_______________________________________________
Post Messages to: [email protected]
Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox
OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech
** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the
author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added
to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
