May 12th && 13th

I am starting my research by examining some of the existing Global Climate Modeling (GCMs) and the features they provide. This will allow us to know what exactly is out there, and how can we develop new features to allow users and scientists to model several complicated sets of data.

What is Climate Modeling anyway?
Climate models are mathematical models that link the various equations that describe the key relationships and processes within a system to simulate its behaviour. By changing the values of certain variables, scientists can study how the system responds to both external and internal changes (Climate Digest, 1).
Here is a summary of some of the more interesting projects I found:'

The EdGCM Project: The Educational Global Climate Model
* The main goal of this project is to allow educators to engage their students in the scientific and technological processes scientists use to forecast climate change.
* Simple user interface
* Can be run on a desktop computer
* Climate experiments can be as simple as examining the impact of a single forcing (e.g., how does the Sun warm the planet?). They can also be more complex to explore the feedbacks caused by changing multiple climate forcing simultaneously. << style="font-weight: bold;">IDL
* Produces dynamic visualizations, data analyses, and develops software applications.

The NASA GISS: General Circulation Models

CCCma Model: The Canadian Center for Climate Modeling and Analysis

Google Motion Chart:
* A dynamic chart to explore several indicators over time. The chart is rendered within the browser using Flash.
* Required knowledge of JavaScript and object oriented programming.

Summary:
The current models provide access to databases to link a particular set of variables such as how temperatures and rain fall have changed in the past 50 years and their expected behavior through the next 50 years. An interesting idea, as discussed yesterday, would be to develop a tool that links a huge set of variables (like climate, plants, buildings, etc..) in dynamic models that show how these variables interact, particularly in the future. Users (mainly scientists) can pick the variables and change the values.

Ideas:
* How to relate buildings and sustainable architecture to our project?
* How to make it affordable?