Climate modelling for the masses

Climate scientists are following the lead of astronomers searching for extraterrestrial intelligence and are asking the general public to model climate change on their home computers. The SETI@home project currently has 1.3 million desktop computers processing radio signals in the search for extra-terrestrial life. Myles Allen of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK believes a similar scheme could work in climate research. "A single 50-year integration [of climate change] would take about 6 months on a personal home computer," Allen writes in the latest issue of Nature. His scheme, called Casino-21, might also help inform the public about the complex nature of climate modelling, he adds.