How Your Laptop Can Help Save the World
While you take a lunch break or an afternoon nap, your laptop can do cutting-edge research on climate change. Install Intel’s Progress Thru Processors app and you're linked to ClimatePrediction.net, which "borrows" your idle computer to run models of climate disruption.
Given the sheer number of factors influencing Earth's temperature, from ice caps to algal blooms, it's no surprise that climate models are incredibly difficult to get right. By donating your processing power to the project, scientists can virtually play out thousands of slightly different scenarios, improving the accuracy of models and learning how sensitive they are to change. The data is then used in critical experiments, one of the most interesting being a test of climate-mitigation geoengineering techniques. And as we all know, knowledge is power — the better we understand what's coming, the better we can prepare for it.