Hi to BBC Climate Crunchers - New to Team.

joeyjojo said:
Not a criticism of the project, but isn't it ironic that you leave your crunchers on 24/7, which uses more electricity, which produces more CO2 (indirectly :p ), which ends up changing the climate more?
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There has been much discussion of this on the BBC forums. The easy answer is "turn off your monitor, speakers, and some lights, and balance up the extra useage".

A slightly deeper answer is to say that making any environmental improvement involves initial cost outlay which results in long term benefits / savings. Fitting loft insulation / doubleglazing / draft excluders all involves cost and effort, but gives a long term benefit of lower heating bills and reduced use of energy. It actually costs more to collect, sort and process recyclable rubbish than to throw it unsorted into landfill. It costs money to propery dispose of waste / sewage to have clean rivers etc. There is a large cost to setting up a wind farm and then having a renewable source of energy. However you have to weigh up the initial cost against the long term benefits.

I can recycle all my rubbish, buy local food, make my own energy all I want but globally my familly impact is just a drop in the ocean. However, when you multiply up indiviual actions becoming widespread general behavior, then you can start having an impact on the problem. CFC's have been eliminated from most fridges and freezers globally and in quite a short space of time.

I personally see the BBC climate model as a way in which I can use my own resourses (ie my fast and underused computers) to add to the science of climate change, which hopefully will feed into the political debate and then actually effect some change in global policy making. Yes, I am using some extra energy now to run the models, but if it results in the scientists having a much better global climate model and being able to make more certain predictions, and the probabilities of likely outcome being better know, then I think that would be well worth it. A little more energy now, for the chance of pulling us back from the brink, is money well spent in my book.
 
PeteMcCann said:
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Was messing with you :) , I totally agree. I've been hassling the parents for a while now to do those things you mention (insulation, double glazing). Most recently I've been looking into changing energy suppliers to something greener, or getting a solar array. My mate has a 20kW array himself which most of his power comes from (thats what started the line of thought originally).

Very good cause. I'd like to know exactly what they've done using folding results, but unfortuantely don't know enough biology to figure out the papers. Will definitely give it some thought.

If enough folders/seti'ers want to change, I think we could really do well with this project :)
 
shadowscotland said:
joeyjojo - you know a small windturbine is more cost effective that solar (PV or Hot water) in the UK. - 20kw array is big :eek: and about 10k in cost (minus 4 in grants) :eek:
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Yeah, cost him 20k I think, but he got a grant for half of it. They run almost everything off of the batteries, but use a generator when the sun is scarce.

Wind turbine more effective eh? Have to look into that. I wouldn't have thought it was windy enough around here.

Hmm its late, damn games.
 
joeyjojo said:
If enough folders/seti'ers want to change, I think we could really do well with this project :)
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Not sure how many could cope with the 4-6 month workunits though. Actually, one of my two crunchers has made 26% in 5 months, so god knows what's going to happen there. :eek:
 
joeyjojo said:
I've been hassling the parents for a while now to do those things you mention (insulation, double glazing). Most recently I've been looking into changing energy suppliers to something greener, or getting a solar array. My mate has a 20kW array himself which most of his power comes from (thats what started the line of thought originally).
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Our house is already pretty well insulated and is 100% double glazed.

But I am also interested in taking it further. I, like you, thought that a wind turbine wouldn't be very effective without a lot of wind :confused:

Also what is the rough initial cost difference between wind and solar?
Or are they pretty close?
 
PeteMcCann said:
I personally see the BBC climate model as a way in which I can use my own resourses (ie my fast and underused computers) to add to the science of climate change, which hopefully will feed into the political debate and then actually effect some change in global policy making. Yes, I am using some extra energy now to run the models, but if it results in the scientists having a much better global climate model and being able to make more certain predictions, and the probabilities of likely outcome being better know, then I think that would be well worth it. A little more energy now, for the chance of pulling us back from the brink, is money well spent in my book.
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I'm quoting this as one of the most succinct and well structured arguments for running CPDN/BBC Climate/Seasonal Attribution I've read.
Nice job. :)
I'm a BOINCER like you but I'm running Einstein, Rosetta, LHC (when there is work) and a bit of SETI for old times sake.

Welcome to the team look forward to reading more posts like the above. :cool:
 
joeyjojo said:
Hmm, yes that is a well structured, thought out argument...

Don't worry, he'll be one of us soon enough :D
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I wouldn't be so sure about that - the force is strong in this one :o :p


I would go and have another look at the BBC/CPDN project but if WUs are several months long that's gonna be turn off for me I'm afraid :(
Are they still split into sections/phases or whathaveyou? Is there any way of quitting part way through a unit without ruining the science completely? :confused:
 
Credit is awarded gradually at checkpoints where key info is transferred (temperature and rainfall) called trickles.
Because of the size of a part crunched WU (hundreds of MB for CPDN IIRC) it's not really viable for dialup users (or even BB users with capped bandwidth) to transfer the information around :(

Either you see the model through or it is essentially wasted effort.

If you're thinking of giving BOINC another whirl Rich have a look at Rosetta. Similar aim to F@H and stacks of feedback to the user base. :)
 
Pumpkinstew said:
I'm quoting this as one of the most succinct and well structured arguments for running CPDN/BBC Climate/Seasonal Attribution I've read.
Nice job. :)
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Thanks. I won't feel to smug though as my Windows installation crashed over the weekend, and the Windows System Restore has not only buggered up both my current models, but also taken out my backups too. **** **** ****. Being new models I hadn't got round to burning a backup to disk either. Looks like I'm in for starting two new models, unless anyone is an expert in Windows System restore. It's not giving me the option to reverse the restore. Any ideas guys?

Pete
 
rich99million said:
I would go and have another look at the BBC/CPDN project but if WUs are several months long that's gonna be turn off for me I'm afraid :(
Are they still split into sections/phases or whathaveyou? Is there any way of quitting part way through a unit without ruining the science completely? :confused:
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Each model runs a climate simulation over a 160 year period from 1920 to 2080. Each day runs an atmospheric model in half hour slices, hence 48 per day, and also an oceanic model in one hour slices, hence 24 per day. The total model is about 4,500,000 time slices in all. The model runs in six day periods (432 timeslices) when it reaches a check point and saves the date in case the computer is turned off. Every year that the model runs , it contacts the project online and 'trickles up' data for which you then recieve credit.
Every 10 years of the model it then sends up a much larger data Zip file to the project which summarises the decade. 16 Zip files in all for a complete model run. Credit is continuously acquired as a reasonable computer can do one model year per day, or two models on a dual core.

Obviously a completed model is the ultimate objective and would be most usefull for the scientists, but they do say that the first few decades are useful as well, as they are trying out your climate model against known information ie 1920 - 2005, and building up a better overall global climate model. 2005 - 2080 is running the prediction phase, to see where your particular climate model leads.

It might well be a long crunching haul, but given the way things are heading if you saw The Independent last week, about a 20% loss of permanent ice from the arctic in one single year, I kind of think that this could be one of the most important DC projects out there.

Sorry all you folding fanatics!!

Pete
 
Berserker said:
Not sure how many could cope with the 4-6 month workunits though. Actually, one of my two crunchers has made 26% in 5 months, so god knows what's going to happen there. :eek:
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All I would stress to anyone thinking of starting the BBC climate model, is to back it up regularly. Man are you ****** when your 4 months of crunching goes down the toilet!!! Just don't go there. Look at the BBC forum to see the pain, wailing and nashing of teeth caused by model loss!!

Pete
 
Peter-B said:
Hi Pete & welcome to the team.
I don’t wish to curb your enthusiasm but we are currently 11th (world) 8th (UK) and unless some of the slackers switch back to the BBC from there cosy Folding “fire side” we are stuck there, well not quite we will stomp “AMD users” in 2380 days!! In fact thinking about it, the cosy fire side seem a much better place to be!
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Hi there Pete. I was looking at the BBC team list which ranks acording to RAC, which I assumed was the norm, but then maybe not. A few more BBC crunchers could easily see us up to 5th on RAC on the BBC list. Is there another ranking list somewhere? Maybe you could point me in the right direction.

Cheers.

Pete
 
PeteMcCann said:
Thanks. I won't feel to smug though as my Windows installation crashed over the weekend, and the Windows System Restore has not only buggered up both my current models, but also taken out my backups too. **** **** ****. Being new models I hadn't got round to burning a backup to disk either. Looks like I'm in for starting two new models, unless anyone is an expert in Windows System restore. It's not giving me the option to reverse the restore. Any ideas guys?
Pete
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Try the Windows forum. Sure to be some experts in there.
System Restore has only ever caused more problems than it's solved for me. :(
 
PeteMcCann said:
Hi there Pete. I was looking at the BBC team list which ranks acording to RAC, which I assumed was the norm, but then maybe not. A few more BBC crunchers could easily see us up to 5th on RAC on the BBC list. Is there another ranking list somewhere? Maybe you could point me in the right direction.

Cheers.

Pete
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Hi Pete,
Stats here

http://www.boincsynergy.com/stats/teams.php?project=cce
http://boincstats.com/stats/team_stats.php?pr=cce&st=0

It’s a shame about the loss but that’s the BBC!
Oceaness is right system restore is a waste of space, I never use it. I back up all models daily and have had to use them twice this week, including to-day. If it gets any worse I’m quitting having only completed 2 models in 8 months. I us to be a folder and it’s a lot easier than this!!
 
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