Take part in the largest climate change experiment ever

he BBC has just joined a research project set up in 2003 to predict climate change, and we are all encouraged to donate the idle processing power of our computers. This will allow the processing of vast numbers of calculations to test different models of prediction and thus find which are the most accurate. There will be a programme about this on BBC4 on 20th February.

This approach is called distibuted computing, and the most famous example is SETI@home, which now has 5 million participants around the world helping to analyse data from radio telescopes to look for signs of extra-terrestrial intelligence. That project is coming to an end for various reasons, and the participants are being encouraged to join other distributed computing projects. A useful article elsewhere describes some of these projects, and lists some of the issues to consider when getting involved.

The climate change project works by giving each participant a unique mathematical formula that attempts to explain changes in the world's climate. The model runs in the background, attempting to predict what the climate would be like from 1920 to 2000. If it's reasonably close to what really happened, then in the second phase, the model will attampt to predict what will happen up until 2080. You can watch progress on your monitor if you wish, in the form of a screensaver showing the rotating Earth, using colours to portray a choice of rainfall, temperature, cloud cover, sea temperature, air pressure or sulphur.

The software you download to take part in this research only runs on PCs, not Apple Macs. Although the film on the BBC website which explains how to install the software shows people using laptops, the small print suggests that laptops are not suitable because they can get too hot. On an average computer with average use, the process will take about three months. You are encouraged not to leave your computer running just for the sake of this research as that wastes electricity.

Intriguingly, the BBC website doesn't stress why accurate predicition of climate change is important. Do they assume that we all know why already? Or are they wary of overstepping what the organisation is supposed to do with the licence fee? Perhaps they don't want to appear too political.

Anyway, whatever form of research you choose to take part in, it makes sense to use that idle processing power to achieve something big.