Climate change viewer

Want to see for yourself what the climate models predict? And how various scenarios of carbon dioxide and other anthropogenic emissions translate into climate change? In May the US Geological Survey and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory launched the Global Climate Change Viewer (GCCV; http://regclim.coas.oregonstate.edu/gccv ), a Web application that allows anyone to check out simulated past and future changes in the annual cycles of precipitation and temperature around the world.

The GCCV incorporates more than 20 climate models covering the years 1850 through 2100, and also looks back at the mid-Holocene period of 6000 years ago and at the last glacial maximum (21 000 years ago). “Paleoclimate is a great way to test the sensitivity of models and how well they reproduce large recorded changes in climate,” says Steven Hostetler, a USGS climate researcher at Oregon State University.

Often, the public hears that it will become one degree warmer in North America by a certain year, says Hostetler. He and the other GCCV creators hope that with their Web application, users will gain more perspective and a better understanding of what the models actually predict.