Although personal computers use more than 8% of the US electricity market, most of the time they have nothing to do. Now a UK research consortium has launched the Web site climateprediction.net to improve the accuracy of climate simulations by harnessing that idle computer power.
The new site originated when Myles Allen of Oxford University wrote a commentary in Nature (volume 401, p. 642, 1999) calling on the science community to exploit home computers for research. Allen’s article was inspired by the SETI@home project, which now harnesses nearly 5 million home computers to process radio signals in the search for extraterrestrial life (see Physics Today, October 1997, page 96). Eventually, the UK’s main weather forcaster, the Exeter-based Met Office, worked on the project with the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Tessella Support Services, Oxford and Reading universities, and the Open University. So far, more than 50 000 individuals have registered...
