http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2005/change.shtml

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The models were run on supercomputers at NCAR and several DOE labs and on the Earth Simulator in Japan.

They should have add a screenshot too...

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<i>phpBB forum for CPDN, all are </i><a href="http://www.climateprediction.net/board">invited</a>

from <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/3/18/195426/564">New Study Predicts Rise in Sea Levels</a>

This is a summary of the two articles.


"Climate's Point of No Return

The die may have been cast for climate change, according to two papers published in the 18 March issue of Science. Climate simulation models suggest that, regardless of human intervention, the oceans will keep fueling global warming, and sea levels will continue to rise over the next 100 years. These effects, however, are much less than expected from uncurbed greenhouse gas emissions.
Hot Zone. The world would get hotter by half a degree centigrade (light brown) even if emissions had been checked in 2000.
CREDIT: Meehl et al. (Science)

Climate scientists generally agree that global temperatures will climb as long as we keep pumping greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere (Science 25 February 2005). So controlling these gases seems to be a logical way out. Set aside the daunting political challenges, however, and there's another intractable problem: thermal inertia. Because water takes longer to cool down than air does, warmed-up oceans will go on dissipating their heat even if industrial emissions are checked.
Using two advanced computer models that incorporated various climatic factors, Gerald Meehl of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, and his colleagues tried to assess this impact. Results, averaged from the two models, suggest that even if an increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases had been halted in 2000, by 2100 the global temperature would still rise about half a degree Celsius and sea levels would still increase by about 10 centimeters just from thermal expansion. "We did not include effects from glacial melting because there is a lot of controversy surrounding it," says Meehl. "If we had, the increase in sea level would probably be twice as much."

Working with a much simpler model and plugging in rising emissions instead of steady concentrations of greenhouse gases, Tom Wigley, a senior scientist at NCAR, arrived at similar ranges for warming but a sea level rise of 25 centimeters per century. Other recent models have suggested a doubling of greenhouse gases will heat the world by 2-4 degrees, and perhaps as much as 11 degrees (ScienceNOW, 26 January) Wigley admits there are uncertainties such as the sensitivity of his model, effects of aerosols, and melting ice caps but says he has tried to factor them in.

"The basic take-home message here is that no matter what we do, climate will change substantially," says Wigley, who calls for a two-pronged approach: "We need to mitigate the problem by drastically reducing emissions and make people aware that we are stuck and have to adapt to inevitable future changes."

Others agree. "It's like being in a car," says Ron Miller, a climate scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York. "Even if we take the foot off the pedal, we'll keep going for a while."

--AMITABH AVASTHI"

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____________________________<br>
<a href="http://www.boincforum.info/boinc/">boinc forum</a> and <a href="http://www.uk4cp.co.uk/">United Kindom</a> team, my climate change <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/mike_atkinson/">blog</a>.