The future of climate change is in Linux's hands
Summary
Topics
By factoring in human influences on carbon, including changes in land use, as well as natural phenomena including volcanic activity, the Millennium Simulations will provide an insight into how the earth's climate will change over the coming decades and centuries.
It's this information that will go towards informing the next assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the body whose information is fed to the highest levels of government to help them make decisions on the environment.The Millennium Simulations' Earth System Model contains sub-models for atmosphere, ocean, land-surface, and ocean-biogeochemistry and features an "interactive carbon cycle".
With scientists across Europe and beyond contributing information to the project and analyzing the results, Millennium Simulations needs a lot of bandwidth - bandwidth enabled by Géant2, a grid linking national research and education networks across the continent.
So far, the simulations have racked up more than 50 terabytes of data, Reinhard Budich, project manager at Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, told silicon.com.
"One of the simulation runs we do of, say, 1,000 years produced something like 2.5 terabytes of data and these data have to be shared. We do not only one run, we do many runs because we have to adjust the models to the different forcings [forcing factors - elements that can affect the climate models] we have and then we do model runs with different forcings switched off and on."Using Géant2, the Institute can make the simulations available to earth scientists, meteorologists, historians and other interested parties around the world.
According to Budich, the contribution of Géant2 - which is also used by scientists working on the Large Hadron Collider - cannot be overstated.
"We, as a project, depend on Géant... Such an infrastructure initiative like Géant is really indispensible for us."The data from the Millennium Simulations is stored at the World Datacenter for Climate, housed in the German Climate Computing Centre in Hamburg - the largest Linux-based database in the world, Budich told silicon.com, holding 400 terabytes of data.The link between the Max Planck Institute and the German Climate Computing Center is a theoretical 655Mpbs.
"This is what we can afford so far - it's a matter of cost as well. How much of that [bandwidth] you really get from that for your little project is one of those things where I'd like to see improvements," Budich said.
"We as researchers have to share bandwidth between us - there are about 400 registered users at this computing centre so you can imagine the bandwidth we get for our transfer. It depends really on time of day, usage of others, etc. What I'd like to see in the long run is that I can reserve bandwidth for an application, I can say: 'Today between noon and 1.30 I want to transfer this much data to somewhere. Give me that bandwidth'. That's the quality of service I'd like to see."
It's an option Budich believes vendors are open to the idea and could adopt such a business model in the future.
Storage too has proved a bugbear for the climate researchers, with data retrieval usually a matter of minutes – but occasionally seeing scientists wait for hours for information.
"Many of those data have to reside on tape because we just can't afford enough disk space for that... Those data that are asked for more often the database keeps on disc basically but those asked for seldom are offloaded onto tape."
Talkback Most Recent of 10 Talkback(s)
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Linux can wipe Al Queda out, too
... according to a top secret research. Since national security is at stake, the researchers are reluctant give further details other than promising "this is the year we're gonna do it. Yes, we can."
LBiege8th Dec 2008 -
Hmmm
to bad it can't shut your stupid yap though.
Linux User 1475608th Dec 2008 -
RE: The future of climate change is in Linux's hands
An example of the best choice of system for the given situation, cheap to run, robust and reliable and in the hands of people who do not mind the extra bit of configuration (they actually need such freedom of configuration).
Alex Costa - http://itechlog.com8th Dec 2008 -
RE: The future of climate change is in Linux's hands
Don't you mean "The future of global warming is in Linux's hand?" Funny how the term, "global warming" has changed to "climate change". How convenient.
mrissman1@...9th Dec 2008 -
Climate Change and Global warming
You say that with sarcasm, but they are different disciplines, or rather climate change in this case means all possible outcomes based on the different forcings. While the study of climate change itself includes the history of past changes and possible future. Global warming is only one portion of climate change both natural and man's contribution to the present cycle. The terms are not really interchangeable.
rdhalsteatzd9th Dec 2008 -
RE: The future of climate change is in Linux's hands
The weather experts cannot accurately tell me the weather next week, or the path of a typhoon! How are they going to tell me months and years in advance? I am now in Saigon and it is getting colder here every year and down into the 60s at night! I know these weather experts are only financing a career for themselves and not benefiting anyone else!!!!
HADaniel310th Dec 2008 -
And I cannot predict the trayectory of a raindrop but I know it's raining
"The weather experts cannot accurately tell me the weather next week"
You cannot predic where a single ant is going but you know that they are collectivelly building an ant hill.
Statistical and trend analysis is not the same as single instance analysis.
I just hope that my response made you a little bit smarter.
rarsa11th Dec 2008 -
Climate change
Thousands of qualified analysts disagree with the politically
motivated analysis of the statistics and trends, but somehow
these qualified naysayers get virtually no press.
This climate change hysteria is a power grab of epic
proportions.
I just hope my response made you a little bit smarter.
cydcharisse12th Dec 2008 -
RE: The future of climate change is in Linux's hands
@Cyd.
You seem to forget, or you just didn't know, that the debate about climate change and global warming has been going on for decades, however, the naysayers have had their way for way too long, they are not getting any press anymore because they were 'proven' wrong.
No one should take my word for it, if you are interested, do some research.
Your comment only managed to mislead whoever believed it.
PS: Go Linux !
ezetreal14th Dec 2008 -
RE: The future of climate change is in Linux's hands
Please try to built into your linux model a very important factor, WHAT i AM MISSING FROM THE ARTICLE:
The role of in-equal and decreased distribution of water on the Landscape -now and 100 years ago. Then you may find the CO2 is NOT THE only one, even not the most important factor of global warning.
WE ALL ARE ON A WRONG TRACK.
For detailes please download the report at: www.waterparadigm.org
tothattila6th Apr 2009
Talkback - Tell Us What You Think
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