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NASA Releases Free Global Climate Model Software

Posted by samzenpus on Thu Jan 13, 2005 01:30 AM
from the hurricane-in-the-classroom dept.
Education Science
ink_polaroid writes "NASA has released its Educational Global Climate Model (EdGCM) for high school and university desktop computers. The software incorporates a 3-D climate model developed at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), New York. It wraps complex computer modeling programs with a graphical interface familiar to most PC users."
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  • Simulated doomsday? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sjrstory (839289) * on Thursday January 13 2005, @01:31AM (#11345805) Homepage
    It would be pretty cool to simulate enviromental doomsday scenarios such as the one seen in the movie The Day after Tomorrow. [thedayaftertomorrow.com]
  • And it does what exactly?
    • I think it allows your average high school student to control the weather, evil genius style, but with an easy PC interface.

  • Nice, if the curriculum allowed for it... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 2advanced.net (849238) on Thursday January 13 2005, @01:34AM (#11345826) Homepage

    EdGCM permits teachers and students to explore the fundamentals of climate science utilizing tools identical to those used in major climate research programs. Many simple climate experiments are possible (e.g. How does the sun warm the planet?), but, it is also possible to conduct in-depth investigations of current events, in near real-time, as they are being studied by climate scientists

    That's great. One of my favorite software packages in the world is Nasa's World Wind, but when I tried to show it to my parents (both high school science teachers), the reaction was the same: we don't have time or computers to use this.

    The state of public education (at least in California) is so poor that this is going to be great for college-level students, but much of the target audience will be left out due to budgets and a testing-centric curriculum.
    • This program looks awesome. I think it just convinced me to take Geophysical Fluid Dynamics (the mathematical study of such things as this) next year even though its a ridiculously rigorous course. So even if NASA doesn't bring technology to market (and they do all the time) they stimulate a desire to learn in people who otherwise would not. And thats gotta be worth something. Maybe they should demand some Department of Education funds for taking over some of their duties (promoting education).

  • It wraps complex computer modeling programs... (Score:5, Funny)

    by DeVilla (4563) on Thursday January 13 2005, @01:37AM (#11345848)
    ... with a graphical interface familiar to most PC users.

    Is it fsp or rts? Is it multi-player and/or single player? And is there a God mode?

  • It wraps complex computer modeling programs with a graphical interface familiar to most PC users.
    This one? [atozed.com]
  • Post a 65 mb file to slashdot without a .torrent?!?!

  • Fossil fuels PREVENT global warming (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Latest science says fossil fuels are good and protect against global warming.
    Here is the story which just hit the wire: [yahoo.com]

    LONDON (Reuters) - Cutting down on fossil fuel pollution could accelerate global warming and help turn parts of Europe into desert by 2100, according to research to be aired on British television on Thursday. "Global Dimming," a BBC Horizon documentary, will describe research suggesting fossil fuel by-products like sulfur dioxide particles reflect the sun's rays, "dimming" temperatures

    • Re:Fossil fuels PREVENT global warming (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Yokaze (70883) on Thursday January 13 2005, @05:27AM (#11346769)
      > Latest science says fossil fuels are good and protect against global warming.

      No, it says the emission of fossil fuel by-products limit the effects of CO2-emissions. Stopping the emission of those by-products will release the full effect of the CO2 emission.

      So, does that mean fossil fuels are good and protect us from global warming, like you concluded?

      No, it means that some by-products are good and momentarily soften the effect of the consumption of fossil fuel.

      It's like saying taking crack is good, because it prevents the signs of withdrawal.

  • self prophecising (Score:5, Funny)

    by zenst (558964) on Thursday January 13 2005, @02:03AM (#11345974) Homepage Journal
    In further news today: 1000's of computer's around the World today began running climate modeling software.

    The Combined heat output from all this extra computer processing is expected to bring most model predictions forward by several years due to the extra heat expended.

    --

    SETI - The project were you can look for life on another planet whilst help kill off the current one quicker. I mean would an `intelligent` form of life be chucking out loads of extra signals wasting resources; Search for dead planets maybe, but intelligent life, HA.
    • I mean would an `intelligent` form of life be chucking out loads of extra signals wasting resources

      Notice how when you speak to someone, people around you can hear. Are you, as an 'intelligent' form of life, actively trying to prevent that "waste of resources"? Same thing with radio waves; it's sometimes easier and more efficent to hit everything than try and direct it exactly where it needs to go.

  • I used it! (Score:5, Funny)

    by _ph1ux_ (216706) on Thursday January 13 2005, @02:17AM (#11346058)
    We ARE ALL DoooooooMED!!!
    • The beauty of modeling chaotic systems is that you can get any answer you want. If you are being paid to study global warming, you set it up with variables and parameters about how global warming is supposed to work and let er rip. If you don't get the results you expect, you adjust the model until it works properly.

      The whole nature of chaotic systems is that iterative models cannot be used to predict future events. You can create models that demonstrates a theory, but the model is of little use in pre

      • > The beauty of modeling chaotic systems is that you can get any answer you want.

        The ugliness of chaotic systems is, that people think they hear the word and now think they now everything about it.

        A river is a chaotic system, nonetheless even without a degree in Mathematics, you will be able to estimate quite correctly that a leaf on a river will flow downwards (most of the time) and no butterfly in Australia will change that.

        Yes, chaotic system put some limitations on the predictability, but strangel

  • Not really free (Score:3, Informative)

    by AnuradhaRatnaweera (757812) on Thursday January 13 2005, @02:20AM (#11346081) Homepage
    Would be nice if they had a Linux port. Or if the source code is made freely [gnu.org] available, someone would have written a clone [or hopefully nicer ;-)] UI!
  • Phew! I read "climax control software" first.

  • Kewl! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gordgekko (574109) on Thursday January 13 2005, @02:35AM (#11346136) Homepage
    Use the same inaccurate software global warming hoaxers use to make their claims! Ignore the fact that the software isn't even able to predict cloud cover!
    • Ignore the fact that the software isn't even able to predict cloud cover!

      For the umpteenth time: climate != weather.

        • Re:Kewl! (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Flaming Foobar (597181) on Thursday January 13 2005, @08:19AM (#11347476)
          Correct. Weather is only one aspect of our planet's climate. What's interesting about the grandparent's point is that the climate as a whole is a vastly more complex system, so if we can't solve for cloud-cover....

          In fact, it's much easier to look at the system as a whole than try to go for extreme detail such as cloud-cover on a very small area, such as a city. We can forecast cloud-covers in a larger scale very accurately. As an analogy, neither do we need to know where every strain of sand is in order to draw a map.

          "Climate is what we expect, wheather is what we get."

          • By analogy.... (Score:5, Insightful)

            by DarkMan (32280) on Thursday January 13 2005, @10:10AM (#11348452) Journal
            To back up the parent poster, consider the following:

            We are unable to predict the electron density at a specific point in a a metal wire, at a given time.

            Yet, we _are_ able to predict the total behaviour of electricty in a wire. Given that electricity is motion of electrons, how does this arise?

            Well, this is a common situation, where models of behaviour at different scales are related only through a very small number of parameters.

            For example, we can predict the magnetic behaviour of a system from just two parameters (for an binary antiferromagnet), yet to calculate the behaviour of the electrons (which cause said magnetism) takes of the order of 100 or so (and about 15 orders of magnitude longer).

            So for practical calculations on magnatic things, you don't need to do the quantum mechanical calculations, just the much simpler ones.

            Sure, technically these are inaccurate. In my experience, we're off by 0.001%, and by about 3-5% in the second derivative. That's so accurate, that there are very many additional cases where the calculations show two possible results, and the experiments arn't accurate enough to tell these apart. Or, in plain terms, good enough.

            I use magnetism and electricity as examples here, because if these agrregate models didn't work, then the computer that you are using to read these works also wouldn't work. That's a pretty solid argument for the usefulness of these types of models.

            Brining this back to weather and climate, the weather researchers call 'weather' individual and specific data points, like cloud cover, rainfall on a day, and so on. 'Climate' is things like total rainfall per year, average temperature in a month - much broader, less specific information.

  • For those who are interested... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by StarfishOne (756076) on Thursday January 13 2005, @03:07AM (#11346242)

    You might also want to check out the following (Distributed Computing) project:

    ClimatePrediction.net [climateprediction.net]

  • Wow, OS X (Score:3, Informative)

    by fsterman (519061) on Thursday January 13 2005, @03:37AM (#11346343) Homepage
    Hey, there is more OS X stuff there than Win32! No linux version, but hey, it still feels fucking cool.

    Although everyone needs to stop copying the brushed metal and aqua buttons. If you are going to do it, don't make it look like shit.
  • Has anybody gotten this working in Wine or WineX? Whenever I try to run it wine just immediately executes, reporting that the program exited with a successful status.

  • A real CASE of global WARMING (Score:3, Funny)

    by tod_miller (792541) on Thursday January 13 2005, @05:45AM (#11346820) Journal
    "We recommend that you NOT leave the GCM running on a Windows laptop unattended. We have found that some Pentium laptops have difficulty dissipating heat and may shutdown (hibernate) without warning causing the climate model to crash. This does not appear to harm the laptop, but can corrupt GCM output files."

    You heard it here first, laptop heat can cause infertility and crash the planet!

  • Expect the climate discussions to improve (Score:3, Interesting)

    by LucidBeast (601749) on Thursday January 13 2005, @06:38AM (#11347006)
    Well, now that we all have a climate simulation software on our computers we can all backup our claims what will happen to earth with good simulation data.

  • Carl Sagan's nuclear winter software (Score:3, Interesting)

    by peter303 (12292) on Thursday January 13 2005, @11:02AM (#11348661)
    Be careful of the quality of software. In the 80s there was a lot of hype about climate modeling based on a simple planetary weather program. The software represented the atmosphere as a single vertical profile of physical conditions. When modelers plugged in the post-nuclear dust clouds it prodicted huge temperature drops. However, more sophisticated "3D" models thta inorporated oceans and continents and wind currents found much smaller effects. These defects didnt really slow down biased scientists who kept on promoting their political agendas nonetheless.

    • Re:Wow - slow down here! (Score:4, Funny)

      by node 3 (115640) on Thursday January 13 2005, @02:17AM (#11346063)
      They are science related topics, which fits the "News for Nerds" part of the masthead.

      For example:

      NASA (space) Releases (verb) Free (adjective) Global Climate Model (science) Software (computers)

      How can that possibly not be appropriate for slashdot?
      • Scientist: "Global Warming is real, and we must study it more"

        Liberal: "The world will end next week! Stop using oil"

        Conserv^H^H^H^H^H Republican: "Global warming is a myth created to hinder my business"

        Nerd: "I wonder if there is any software that can be used for climate modeling"
    • Honestly, I'm not sure exactly the point you're making, but since you mentioned "State of Fear", I'm going to take this opportunity to point out Realclimate.org's great commentary on "State of Fear" [realclimate.org]. It's not a short article, so here's the summary:

      In summary, I am a little disappointed, not least because while researching this book, Crichton actually visited our lab and discussed some of these issues with me and a few of my colleagues. I guess we didn't do a very good job. Judging from his reading list,

    • http://www.whrc.org/resources/online_publications / warming_earth/skeptics.htm

      "Laypeople frequently assume that in a political dispute the truth must lie somewhere in the middle, and they are often right. In a scientific dispute, though, such an assumption is usually wrong." - Paul Ehrlich

      "It is human nature to protect your own interests. We may recall the extensive and incredibly successful campaign of the American tobacco companies to conceal the link between cancer and the use of tobacco products. Fo
    • I wonder if you could get the source. NASA part of the US government, right? Well, anything created by the US government is, by law, in the public domain. Wouldn't that include the source code? Also, as long as it's not classified, it should be available under the Freedom of Information Act of 1997 (1997?).

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