Technology behind IPCC report
Software allows scientists to build a more detailed climate model
The technology behind the report is the Model Coupling Toolkit - created by the Argonne National Laboratory in the United States. The software allows scientists to link together data and was the main tool used to write the report "Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis."
The report made headlines earlier this month when a team of over 1,000 scientists contributing to the United Nations study concluded humans are almost certainly contributing to global warming.
The report projected possible future global climate changes as a result of rising greenhouse gases. The results included higher ocean levels, a warmer Earth, and more severe weather.
By using the software toolkit, scientists are able to see climate simulations of the past, present and future. The software allows for more variables to be considered in a simulation of the Earth's climate.
"One of the functions defines which variables, such as wind speed, will be passed from one model to another," explains Argonne computational scientist Robert Jacob in an e-mail interview.
"It's a somewhat complicated picture of data moving between various processors running the model."
Combining models of climate factors allow scientists to have a more detailed and accurate model of what a future climate could look like. For example, scientists interested in global warming might want to look at how ocean surface temperatures affect global atmosphere, Jacob says.
To do that, a model that calculates ocean temperatures could feed data into another computer program that simulates atmospheric conditions.
Software users see the data communicated between models in a coloured bar chart, aiding their understanding of how the different factors interact.
The full report will be publicly available through the IPCC web site in May.
