weatherathome

"weatherathome" is supported by the Guardian.

The experiment has been developed with financial assistance from

Please join this exciting new experiment and help scientists understand in more detail than ever before what may lie ahead for the weather in certain parts of the world.

Watch project scientist Suzanne Rosier describing "weatherathome" here.

You’ve heard of climate change, but what does that actually mean for the weather in the region where you live? Could it be that you are going to see an increase in the number of damaging weather events? Or could the weather actually be getting nicer? You now have the opportunity to help scientists find the answers to questions like these, by taking part in the climateprediction.net “weatherathome” experiment.

Since the launch of climateprediction.net in 2003, hundreds of thousands of volunteers have generously donated their computers’ spare processing power to run state-of-the-art global climate models and help scientists learn more about the range of climates we are most likely to encounter in the twenty-first century. The results have been tremendous – a huge thank you to everyone who has taken part! Scientists continue to pore over the masses of data you have so kindly returned to the project and, indeed, will continue doing so for some time to come.

Such global models can tell us a lot, but they are still not detailed enough to tell us much about the potential changes to regional and local weather. To learn about these we need to use a model which is so detailed in its coverage that it can only afford to cover a limited area of the globe – a ‘regional climate model’. In this new “weatherathome” experiment, climateprediction.net has partnered with the Met. Office, with support from Microsoft Research, to develop a regional climate model that is available for download and running on personal computers anywhere.

A regional model such as this needs to be supplied with climate information such as temperature, winds and humidity, around its edges, so that it still feels the influence of the weather in other parts of the world. In “weatherathome”, this will be achieved by embedding the regional model within a ‘driving’ global model. So if you choose to take part in “weatherathome” you will essentially be running ‘two models in one’ on your computer.

Initially, three target regions are now available for download: the Western US, Southern Africa and Europe. We chose these because the majority of climateprediction.net participants (to date) live in Europe and the US, and because Southern Africa is a region thought to be particularly vulnerable to climate change. We hope, in time, to be able to extend the experiment to many other regions around the globe. Your suggestions will be welcome!

Click the buttons to see some sample pictures from these initial three regions:

You can find details about the planned experiments here.

To accompany the experiment we are putting together some online information packs. Available at climateeducation.net, these are aimed at anyone interested in learning about the basics of climate science, how modelling is done and how to go about interpreting the results of experiments such as climateprediction.net and "weatherathome".

Please go to our registration page, which will allow you to select your preferred region. Full instructions are available there.

All images produced by the "weatherathome" team with gratefully acknowledged assistance from Anthony Beurive (Sony CSL)

The "weatherathome" team is: Myles Allen, Neil Massey, Andy Bowery, Jonathan Miller, Hiro Yamazaki, Cameron Rye, Jara Imbers, Niel Bowerman, Suzanne Rosier (Oxford University), Richard Jones, Simon Wilson (Met. Office), Daithi Stone, Bruce Hewitson (University of Cape Town), Philip Mote (Oregon State University)