Your PCs forecast climate future

[YankeyMCC]

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A computer model of climate run on home PCs in conjunction with the BBC has yielded its first results.

About 250,000 people downloaded software from climateprediction.net onto their home computers, each running a single simulation of the future.

The results suggest the UK could be about 3C warmer than now in 75 years' time, agreeing with other models.

Full details will be revealed at the weekend in a BBC TV programme presented by Sir David Attenborough.
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The predictions are not exact; and the further from the present day you look, the greater variability there is, so that by 2080 the rise could be as low as 2C or as high as 6C.

Along with higher temperatures the model predicts greater variability in rainfall, with increased risks of floods and of long dry periods.

"These figures basically support the scientific consensus at the moment," observed Dr Faull

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"What makes it especially interesting is that we have included changes to the Sun's output, based on what it has done over the last century; and we find it doesn't make much difference.

"The idea that such changes could influence climate over and above the human influence we don't find very likely."

The model also produced predictions for the climate globally, but these are under wraps at the moment as the team awaits formal publication in a scientific journal.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6268595.stm