If you are a "climate skeptic", we have some great news for you.
You can now use electricity generated mostly with fossil fuels to help study climate change models without leaving the comfort of that air conditioned home.
Let's take a step back and explain.
Much of modern science depends on vast amounts of computing power, and there never seems to be quite enough of it.
So, some years ago, scientists looked at the internet and thought, well, there are millions of computers sitting around in private homes or small companies without doing much work at all. Wouldn't it be great if we could enlist some in a distributed scheme for science?
They set out to break computation tasks down into small bits which could be distributed to computers all around the world and then reassembled into the large jigsaw. If you follow popular science programs, for example NPR's Science Friday, you may have heard about projects like protein folding or computations for the CERN particle collider.
Unfortunately, the initial efforts turned out to be very sciency or very geeky, if you will. If you were not a geek or did not the correct make and version of machine and operating system, your efforts often failed outright.
In 2015, this has changed, and you should try again or try for the first time. You still need some patience but chances are you can get beyond a cryptic setup failure and start contributing to science.
UC Berkeley is my favorite starting point. They have a software package called BOINC for managing a tremendous variety of open source and grid computing projects.
Install Boinc, create an account, and marvel at the selection of projects you can choose from.
For climate skeptics, we recommend the Oxford University Climate Study Project.
See, you don't have to build a coal roller to prove your skeptic cred.
Just fire up your computer and let her run for a few days on a climate modeling job.
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