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Posts by mo.v

Posts by mo.v

1) Message boards : climateprediction.net Science : The Sky is Falling (Message 56623)
Posted 3 Aug 2017 by Profile mo.v
Post:
Paradox, my understanding of the situation is that the original phrase 'global warming' was generally replaced by 'climate change' when it became clear that warming would lead to associated phenomena such as changes in rainfall amount and distribution. For example, the attribution study models we have been crunching for CPDN are typically designed to work out whether specific weather phenomena are probably caused by the climate change we are experiencing.

I don't think this change in phraseology was forced upon the scientific community by anyone.
2) Message boards : Cafe CPDN : Trump (Message 56336)
Posted 7 Jun 2017 by Profile mo.v
Post:
His hand in fomenting new trouble in yet more parts of the Middle East makes his attitude towards climate change appear almost like a sideshow, but of course it's all equally important.

Climate change hasn't exactly played a prominent part in the UK election campaign.
3) Message boards : climateprediction.net Science : Antarctic Glaciers Retreat Unstopable (Message 49162)
Posted 18 May 2014 by Profile mo.v
Post:
The YouTube film is about the same research discussed in the BBC article, and the visuals in the film are phenomenal.
4) Message boards : climateprediction.net Science : Antarctic Glaciers Retreat Unstopable (Message 49160)
Posted 18 May 2014 by Profile mo.v
Post:
Could I please add live links:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27381010

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQMtb1Pd07E
5) Message boards : climateprediction.net Science : Misconfiguration e-mail (Message 49159)
Posted 18 May 2014 by Profile mo.v
Post:
Atip, could you first please find your computer's antivirus and firewall exclusion lists and add BOINC to them. Something was causing every model to exit 100 times before they had even started; after 100 exits every BOINC task automatically aborts. I think it's possible that the cause was your firewall or AV.

If you need to navigate to where the two BOINC folders are to add them to the exclusion list, you'll find where they are here:

http://boincfaq.mundayweb.com/index.php?language=1&view=592&sessionID=107adb263ce3c21df6a8b7c009c3bc52

The models are inside the BOINC DATA directory. I would exclude that first as you may not need to exclude the other BOINC directory.

Try the AV exclusion list first before you try the firewall.

Some AVs are much more aggressive than others with regard to BOINC and its projects.
6) Questions and Answers : Getting started : Q. concerning duration (Message 49153)
Posted 18 May 2014 by Profile mo.v
Post:
Hi Matthew

They will be useful to the scientists but only if they produce all their files. If a single file is missing the whole model will be discarded.

They will only produce all their files:

* if they are never stopped or interrupted (a stop, for example an exit from Boinc Manager or a computer shutdown, means the file that should be produced next will be missed).

* or if you have selected Yes for Leave Tasks in Memory while Suspended? in the computing preferences of your account. If this option is selected the user is free to stop the model.

You could leave network activity off to see whether the files are being produced. They'd stay waiting in the Transfers tab until you let them upload.

Some people have successfully completed these models, generating all the files. But you'd be one of a select minority.
7) Questions and Answers : Wish list : Using GPUs for number crunching (Message 48738)
Posted 8 Apr 2014 by Profile mo.v
Post:
Hi Volvo

The CPDN models come from the UK Met Office where they consist of a version of the Unified Model. CPDN then adapts these models for its own use, for example deciding on the precise parameter values for particular experiments and compiling the models for the three platforms: Windows, Linux and Mac. Further CPDN adaptations can consist of time-slicing long models so that different computers take on different sections, and they all have to be stitched together.

But they all still consist of the Unified Model which the Met Office has adapted and developed continuously for years. The Met Office has a team of developers working on this, just as at the small number of other institutions that have developed models. I've seen a list of the names of one of these teams; it filled a computer screen. I also know that these organisations employ ace programmers.

To my knowledge these organisations all run their models on CPUs, in some cases on supercomputers. For example, a supercomputer in Tokyo is used for this purpose. If using GPUs were possible for the type of calculations required for climate models I'm pretty sure that all these model programmers in several institutions would already have harnessed this possibility. They have every motivation to complete model runs as quickly as possible because similar models based on the UM are used for weather prediction, for which they also run ensembles, albeit much smaller than ours at CPDN.

CPDN has two programmers who do not design the UM which runs on CPU.

We are all aware that running research tasks on computers uses electricity and that we need to ensure that our computers run as efficiently as possible. One way we can reduce the carbon footprint is be ensuring that as few models crash as possible.
8) Message boards : Number crunching : News and Announcements (Message 48736)
Posted 8 Apr 2014 by Profile mo.v
Post:
CPDN Beta

Andy has said:

Hi All,

The Beta server has a serious issue at present that's preventing it being updated, I am afraid it is going to have to remain offline until we can look at it again tomorrow.

Andy
9) Message boards : Number crunching : Computation Errors (Message 48724)
Posted 7 Apr 2014 by Profile mo.v
Post:
Unfortunately you can't at the moment compare how that second task fares on another computer because it was sent to a computer that crashes everything it receives.

Both of those models were on the same computer and reported at the same time. Did they crash at the same moment?

The reason why one computer received credit but not the other would generally be because one got stuck in a loop. That used to be a problem with certain model types but AFAIK in these regional models looping is rare or unknown. I don't mean impossible.
10) Message boards : climateprediction.net Science : Why do we crunch? (Message 48711)
Posted 4 Apr 2014 by Profile mo.v
Post:
On the boinc_dev forum David Anderson has announced the publication in PLOS (Public Library of Science) of an article called Scientists@Home: What Drives the Quantity and Quality of Online Citizen Science Participation?.

If you've ever furrowed your brow, stamped your foot and wondered why on earth you continue to crunch, this article will tell you why you do it. They find that quantity and quality of participation are not driven by identical motives.

The research for this article was based on a number of very different volunteer research projects but didn't include ClimatePrediction. Not this time. But reference no 34 must be by Anne Holohan of Trinity College Dublin who interviewed a few CPDN members by phone last year. Her co-author must have been Anu Garg who sends the A Word A Day emails.
11) Message boards : Number crunching : New tasks, Charts (Message 48710)
Posted 4 Apr 2014 by Profile mo.v
Post:
I've mentioned it in the forum News thread at the top of Number Crunching here.
12) Message boards : Number crunching : News and Announcements (Message 48709)
Posted 4 Apr 2014 by Profile mo.v
Post:
Norwegian member Tullus has designed an extra Server Status page which as well as showing the number of models of each type available has graphs to show model availability through time. Here it is:

http://ob.cakebox.net/cpdn_status/server_status.html

He's still working on it and discussing it in this forum thread.

If Tullus's clever app ever isn't available, CPDN's official Server Status page always has a link in the menu on the left-hand-side of this page. (If uploads or downloads aren't working properly you should still look there to see whether any servers are down.)
13) Message boards : Number crunching : Computation Errors (Message 48693)
Posted 3 Apr 2014 by Profile mo.v
Post:
We should only ever reboot when no CPDN models are running. In general, rebooting with BOINC and other projects' tasks running is not a problem but CPDN models are an exception to this. Before shutting down, rebooting or restarting it's a good idea to suspend all tasks in the BOINC Manager Activity tab then exit completely from BOINC. To do this, in the BOINC Manager File menu select Exit, or else right-click on the BOINC icon then select Exit.

Pressing the X button of BOINC Manager is not enough. The X button doesn't suspend the models.

The models do not enjoy being closed down by an OS which may be too quick and catch them at a critical moment in their calculations.

If we don't exit from running models and BOINC when rebooting, sooner or later we are likely to crash the occasional model. As far as I know this has always been the case and is not a recent phenomenon.

Exiting from model computation + BOINC only takes a moment and helps protect our considerable investment in computer time and electricity.
14) Message boards : Number crunching : Credit updates? (Message 48678)
Posted 2 Apr 2014 by Profile mo.v
Post:
None of the top 300 CPDN crunchers have had any credit at BoincStats for more than a month. Here's another random page there:

http://boincstats.com/en/stats/2/user/list/0/1200/0
15) Message boards : Number crunching : NZ Application "not in DB" (Message 48661)
Posted 1 Apr 2014 by Profile mo.v
Post:
On April 1st anything can happen. Here's what is planned for Scottish roads.
16) Message boards : Number crunching : NZ Application "not in DB" (Message 48658)
Posted 1 Apr 2014 by Profile mo.v
Post:
You're right. Andy knows about this so we just need to be patient until he finds time to fix it. As far as I know we can continue to process these models.
17) Message boards : Number crunching : Must set rsc_memory_bound correctly (Message 48656)
Posted 1 Apr 2014 by Profile mo.v
Post:
Some of us saw your email to the boinc_alpha list last night, Jacob. Thyme Lawn said at UK bedtime that he'd email Andy about it this morning. The settings will clearly need to be modified, but fortunately not now in a rush.

If this had happened a few hours later you'd have wondered whether it was an ill-conceived April Fools joke. Pity those two well-advanced models crashed, but you can't alpha-test without the occasional casualty.

18) Message boards : Number crunching : NZ Application "not in DB" (Message 48648)
Posted 31 Mar 2014 by Profile mo.v
Post:
I have a number of the same on both computers. The 'not in DB' problem doesn't prevent the models from crunching, sending trickles or claiming credit. I haven't checked yet whether these models have been uploading files or not (there are certainly no files stuck in Transfers). I think the whole batch created on 25 March is probably affected.

Thanks for the report, Ananas.
19) Questions and Answers : Macintosh : GB added to my Time Machine backup (Message 48621)
Posted 30 Mar 2014 by Profile mo.v
Post:
Hi Barry, welcome to the forum.

The BOINC Programs directory should be here:

Macintosh: /Applications/BOINC/

and the BOINC Data directory here:

Macintosh OS X: /Library/Application Support/BOINC Data/

The Programs directory will increase in size either not at all or hardly because that's where the BOINC platform is. The climate models are in BOINC Data where the files will increase in size as the models progress.

You can read more about BOINC 7 here if you have the time and inclination:

http://boincfaq.mundayweb.com/index.php?language=1&view=592&sessionID=b3b9ebf825ad6aa1fffef8b017a7a9d8

By the way, your very nice computer seems to be an all-in-one and probably ultra-slim. Is the cooling good? Check the CPU temperature with all four of your models running. I would be interested to know what you find.
20) Message boards : Number crunching : ANZ model upload problems. (Message 48618)
Posted 29 Mar 2014 by Profile mo.v
Post:
Please don't abort any of the models. The files will very probably upload eventually and everything you've crunched will be of use to the project. The uploads will retry automatically after specified backoff delays and the files will come to no harm waiting to upload. Some people sometimes have files waiting to upload for more than a week or two. Having files waiting to upload shouldn't prevent your computer from receiving new work.

Some of these delays can be caused by the large number of files waiting in queue to upload and the server can't handle the simultaneous volume.


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