Making climate models open source makes them even more useful

Designing climate experiments is all but impossible in the real world. We can’t, for instance, study the effects of clouds by taking away all the clouds for a set period of time and seeing what happens.

MiMA: an open source way to model the climate.

Instead, we have to design our experiments virtually, by developing computer models. Now, a new open-source set of climate models has allowed this research to become more collaborative, efficient and reliable.

Full climate models are designed to be as close to nature as possible. They are representations of the combined knowledge of climate science and are without a doubt the best tools to understand what the future might look like.

Read the piece on The Conversation by a Maritime Continent Research Fellow from the University of Melbourne, Martin Jucker - “Making climate models open source makes them even more useful.”

Can property survive the great climate transition?

As we become an increasingly urban species, urban resilience is emerging as a big deal. The idea is generating a lot of noise about how to develop or retrofit cities that can deal with the many challenges before us, or consume less energy in the transition to post-carbon economies.

Property is under threat, physically and conceptually, from climate change. 

There is ample activity aimed at making this happen, including through designing and building ecocities, and calls such as that of the Transition Towns movement, which suggests substantial changes to our ways of life might be both necessary and inevitable.

In all of this, very little has been said about the elephant in the urban living room – property. Property systems are the codification of our relationship to place and the way in which many of us make a claim to place, including a roof over our heads.

If our cities are to become more resilient and sustainable, our systems of property need to come along for the ride.

Read the piece on The Conversation by a Senior Research Fellow with the Institute for Culture and Society at the Western Sydney University, Louise Crabtree - “Can property survive the great climate transition?”