Climate Wizard
Climate Wizard is a Web tool that generates color maps of projected temperature and precipitation changes using 16 of the world's most prominent climate-change models. It is being used to consider such things as habitat shifts that will affect endangered species, places around the world where crops could be at risk because of drought and temperatures that could cripple fruit and nut production in California's Great Central Valley.
Climate Wizard, a tool meant for scientists and non-scientists alike.
"Climate Wizard is meant to make it easier to explore climate data in an interactive way," Girvetz says. "It makes the data accessible in ways that are more intuitive, even for people who are not climate scientists." For example, data used by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the science organization evaluating the risks of climate change, is made visual and more readily understandable through Climate Wizard. Politicians, resource managers and citizens are all potential users, Girvetz says.
Climate Wizard is a joint effort among the UW, University of Southern Mississippi and The Nature Conservancy. It lets users focus on states, countries or regions around the world and apply different scenarios to generate color-coded maps of changes in temperature and precipitation that can, in turn, be used to consider such things as moisture stress in vegetation and freshwater supplies.
Since the large climate datasets are stored and analyzed remotely on powerful computers, users of the tool do not need to have fast computers or expensive software, but simply need access to the Internet.
Climate Wizard was funded by and initially developed for The Nature Conservancy planners and scientists wanting climate change information when considering such things as priorities for habitat protection efforts.
RESOURCES
Climate Wizard Link
Applied Climate-Change Analysis: The Climate Wizard Tool
Girvetz EH, Zganjar C, Raber GT, Maurer EP, Kareiva P, et al. (2009) PLoS ONE 4(12): e8320. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0008320
Link to this paper: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0008320
Lessons Learned and Guidance
Document used to assist teams in the 2011 New York Climate Clinic: NY Climate Clinic - Climate Wizard Analysis
MEDIA
Huffington Post (September 21, 2011):
NOAA Coastal Services Center (Mar/April 2010):
Fast company (Jan 8, 2010):
VizWorld (Jan 6, 2010):
O'Reilly Radar (Jan 5, 2010):
Science Daily (Dec 29, 2009):
International Science Grid This Week: Link of the week (Jan 6, 2010):
Press release from the University of Washington (Dec 15, 2009):
