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Thread: BBC links to huge climate project

  1. #1

    BBC links to huge climate project

    BBC links to huge climate project

    The BBC is inviting viewers to join the world's biggest online climate prediction project.

    Climateprediction.net has already been running for two years and has generated forecasts on the likely extent of climate change.

    Participants download software onto their personal computers which run the program when the machine is idle.

    Its newest, most sophisticated computer model is being launched on Tuesday in conjunction with BBC Four in the UK.

    "The main change in this model is that it uses a fully dynamic ocean," said the project's chief scientist David Stainforth from Oxford University.

    "Previous versions used a very simplified ocean, whereas this one allows us to see how the atmosphere and the ocean interact," he told the BBC News website.

    The upgraded design should provide a more accurate representation of the real world, where heat and gases are continuously exchanged between the atmosphere and the ocean, and should produce more realistic projections of future climate.

    Spreading intelligence

    Climateprediction.net was established more than two years ago and uses the "distributed computing" approach.

    Rather than running programs on one supercomputer, it uses the combined power of numerous PCs, each running a slightly different computer simulation.
    No two simulations produce exactly the same results; overall, the project produces a picture of the possible range of outcomes given the present state of scientific knowledge.

    Last year climateprediction.net released results from its existing model suggesting that a doubling of the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide would increase the global average temperature by between 2C and 11C.

    Distributed computing has been used before, notably by the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence or Seti, where several million people have downloaded software enabling them to analyse data from observations of distant stars for signs of alien life.

    The scientists behind climateprediction.net believe their project is also a tool to spread awareness and understanding of climate change.

    The link to BBC television may, they believe, help with this angle of their project as well as recruiting more users.

    They hope to have initial results from the new model about three months after it is launched.

    Frances McNamara, the BBC's producer for the experiment, said the project would give people a chance to be part of efforts to tackle a warming world.

    "We wanted to use the BBC's web and interactive services to help the audience to make a personal contribution - not only to the climate change season of programming, but also to genuinely new science."

    At the end of the BBC Four programme Meltdown, viewers will be asked to log in, download, and set their PCs to the task of predicting the climate of the future.

    Meltdown, part of the Climate Chaos Season, will be broadcast on BBC Four on Monday 20 February 2006 at 21:00GMT.


    Story from BBC NEWS:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...re/4702636.stm

  2. #2
    Senior Member
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    This is great publicity for DC in general. It is good to see such a big organization getting involved.

  3. #3
    Boinc'ing away
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    Will there be a Free-DC team? I've wanged 3 PCs onto it for the moment (attached to bbc.cpdn.org)...

    Top teams list: http://bbc.cpdn.org/top_teams.php

    BOINC Stats for Climate Change: http://www.boincstats.com/stats/proj...aph.php?pr=cce

  4. #4
    Administrator Bok's Avatar
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    We do need a team. If someone hasn't created one when I get back from dinner tonight I'll do it.

    Bok

  5. #5

    Free-DC Team

    I think there is already a Free D-C team. In my stats it shows up as CPDN. I personally don't like the project. The work units are huge...something like 1600 hours. I don't have that much computing power and get more enjoyment out of the projects with smaller wu's.

    Ken

  6. #6
    Keeper of the Fridge PY 222's Avatar
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    1600 hours?

    No way I can ever run this.

  7. #7
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    i just loaded this project on my pentium m 1.7ghz laptop... after 15 min of work est time of completion is 2737 hours...

    This also seems to be a BBC project... diffrent then CPDN i think.. per their page there is no free-dc team yet..

    Thanks,
    Ryan

    :::EDIT::: looks like people on their message boards are saying not to install their custom boinc client but use the normal one... attach to this project using project url = http://bbc.cpdn.org
    Last edited by sTs950; 02-14-2006 at 11:21 PM.

  8. #8
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    that's what I've done - use bbc.cpdn.org to attach.

    CPDN also uses trickles so you don't have to wait the 1600 hours (or whatever) for points...just think of it as a lot of WUs downloaded at once, it helps

    Joined the Climate Change Free DC team (there was a CPDN one but this is a different project).

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by sTs950
    This also seems to be a BBC project... diffrent then CPDN i think..
    The BBC experiment is running the same models that the main CPDN project will be running in a few weeks time. Or more specifically, the BBC project is running phase 2 of CPDN but phase 2 hasn't been rolled out to the main CPDN project yet - it's coming soon apparantely.
    ff/.png">

  10. #10
    Target Butt IronBits's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by PY 222
    1600 hours?

    No way I can ever run this.
    I read from here http://www.theregister.com/2006/02/1...imate_project/
    The program will take an average home PC around three months to run a climate model from 1920 to 2080. The scientists say it will not significantly affect performance. Allen said the aim of the 500,000 permutations was to get an accurate picture of changes that occurred in the 20th century.

  11. #11
    So for now the BBC project and CPDN are seperate projects? When CPDN goes to phase 2, will it be working on the same data or different stuff again?

  12. #12
    I gather that the CPDN phase 2 will be the same as the current BBC CCE project, but there won't be duplication in the WUs - ie the BBC are getting a block of WUs and CPDN will process the rest.

    I could be wrong though - I'm just picking this up from all the forums about.
    ff/.png">

  13. #13
    Administrator PCZ's Avatar
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    Crikey these WU's are huge !!

    Someone mentioned 1600 hrs to completion, well only if you are using an FX57

    Most PC's are going to take a lot longer than that.
    Memory Bandwidth is king here.

  14. #14
    Member rbutcher's Avatar
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    I run on Linux with just the command line, no X server. So I need the project URL and a key to connect to the project. Anybody know how I get a key for this project ? They seem to assume that everybody will connect through the graphical client.. No "create account" option on the website ?

  15. #15
    Administrator PCZ's Avatar
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    You can use this URL to create an account and join Free-DC
    http://bbc.cpdn.org/create_account_form.php?teamid=91

    Or this URL to create an account with no team affinity.
    http://bbc.cpdn.org/create_account_form.php?

    Use this URL to get to the 'Advanced' page
    http://bbc.cpdn.org/advanced.php

    Use this URL to get to the Forum
    http://bbc.cpdn.org/forum_index.php

    Use this URL for Top team Stats
    http://bbc.cpdn.org/top_teams.php

  16. #16
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    Quick question (to Bok) - will you be adding this project to your stats?

  17. #17
    Administrator PCZ's Avatar
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    Should also mention i can't get the BBC client to run on my PXE nodes.
    They are command line only no X.

    The exe tries to run for a few seconds then quits, runs again and quits.
    This cycle continues until i kill boinc.

    Have a feeling it's trying to start up a GUI which it can't do.

  18. #18
    Member rbutcher's Avatar
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    It spends +- 1 hr doing various housekeeping before it starts crunching. Thanks for the account link, I've joined the free-dc team. 3mths from now I expect the model to end with the message "we're all doomed".

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    Administrator PCZ's Avatar
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  20. #20
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    very nice - esp considering there's just 2 people with results (although your's shame my input )

  21. #21
    Dungeon Master alpha's Avatar
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    Well I'm one of the other 2 members. I've been crunching part time since the announcement and I obviously haven't trickled any results yet. 27 hours of crunching on 1.9GHz Athlon, 0.52% done.

    I looked and saw what monster hardware pfb and PCZ are running so I'm not surprised you're striding ahead already.

  22. #22
    Administrator PCZ's Avatar
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    You will get a trickle at 0.63%.

  23. #23
    Member rbutcher's Avatar
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    I have a 1.7 ghz AMD cpu running a BBC wu now for 49 hrs, shows 1.08 % completed.. yet BOINC Manager 5.2.13 shows 2513 hours to go. Yet 1.08 % in 49 hrs stretched out to 100% works out at 4537 hrs, i.e. 4488 hrs to go. Anybody know why the discrepancy ?

  24. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by PCZ
    Memory Bandwidth is king here.
    So this is a good project for my home machine.

    Carlos

  25. #25
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    One of my clients seems to attract WUs that error out - looking at the results the WUs error out elsewhere...very odd that it's the only one out of 8 clients to do this...

  26. #26
    Dungeon Master alpha's Avatar
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    pfb, overclocked/overheating?

    On a totally unrelated and off-topic note, I'm finally upgrading my main rig tonight from XP2200 to AMD 64 3700 (dual core was too expensive for me ). Also going from 512MB PC2100 to 1GB PC3200. HAR! I don't upgrade often, so it is always a happy day.

    Hopefully I'll have enough bits and pieces to keep the XP2200 going. Might make a good gaming box for my gf so that she can play Diablo 2 stutter-free

  27. #27
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    nope - CPDN proper is OK...just odd it's that one PC and the fact other clients have errors with the WUs as well...

  28. #28
    Administrator PCZ's Avatar
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    OH well Free-DC slip down the rankings and mix it with the also rans.

  29. #29
    stirring.... meep's Avatar
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    Shame... I am going to move one dual core beast and one high end p4 onto this when I get back from my travels.

    Anyone else thinking of joining in and running this to get free-dc back to 1st?

  30. #30
    Target Butt IronBits's Avatar
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    So far, the following members have checked in....
    PCZ
    pfb
    rcbutcher
    IronBits
    AJCSNAVE
    alpha
    Liam
    patrick brans
    Justas
    sTs950
    Lynette - new member! Looky Looky Laura I mean Moogie!


    Wonder what's keeping Fozzie and Lauren2 ???
    /me drags out the and takes a
    artypop:

  31. #31
    Target Butt IronBits's Avatar
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    more iron on the way ...

  32. #32
    Dungeon Master alpha's Avatar
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    Just need to get another PSU and HDD and I'll be able to get my old XP2200 on it. The #1 spot rightfully belongs to us!

  33. #33
    Dungeon Master alpha's Avatar
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    Hmm I just had a thought.

    Presumably there would be a performance difference on this project between single-channel and dual-channel RAM right?

    I've got 1GB PC3200 Crucial at the mo, would it be as simple as adding another to get dual-channel going? Also, is it going to make a big difference? If not I'd rather not bother splashing out on another stick.

  34. #34

    BBC links to huge climate project

    Nope Dave - people have simply fallen for the PR against climate science in the media and some pretty sharp guys are progressively exposing each case of this antiscience disinformation now. Expect more of the same in the coming months.Cheers - John

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