Global ChangeIntersection of Nature and Culture

DIY climate modeling

Monday, October 12th, 2009

There was a short news story tucked in a recent Nature issue (2009, 461:581) showcasing a new breed of “instant” climate models that package the features of general circulation models (GCMs) into a real-time, easy-to-use web browser environment that anyone can try.

Check out the models at Climate Interactive.

These models allow folks to see the impications of different CO₂ emission reduction scenarios immediately, helping to alleviate a problem identified by John Sterman in a recent Science article: People have bad mental models that way underestimate the magnitude and timing required for CO₂ reductions.