BYOE Video 2: How to Use Build your own Earth

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From the course by University of Manchester

Our Earth: Its Climate, History, and Processes

75 ratings

University of Manchester

Our Earth: Its Climate, History, and Processes

75 ratings

Develop a greater appreciation for how the air, water, land, and life formed and have interacted over the last 4.5 billion years.

From the lesson

Build Your Own Earth and Conclusion

BYOE Video 1: Introduction to Build Your Own Earth4:17

BYOE Video 2: How to Use Build your own Earth8:15

BYOE Video 3: How to Interpret Climate Properties: Surface Temperatures, the Jet Stream, Clouds, and Precipitation 9:14

BYOE Video 4: Using Build Your Own Earth to Study Past Earth Climates 10:49

Meet the Instructors

Prof. David M. Schultz
Professor of Synoptic Meteorology
School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences
Dr Rochelle Taylor
Postdoctoral Research Associate
School of Earth, Atmospheric & Environmental Sciences
Dr Jonathan Fairman
Postdoctoral Research Associate
School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences

Hi, my name is Dr. Jonathan Fairman.

And I'm here today to talk to you about Build Your Own Earth, a tool that we have

built so that you can actually explore different climate parameters.

This video is meant to be a walk-through of the tool, so that you will be able to

actually independently go through all of the simulations that we have already run.

Build Your Own Earth can be accessed through buildyourownearth.com, or

through the Coursera website.

When you go to the website, you are first given two options,

get started, or take a tour.

Since this is our first time going through,

we're going to select Take a Tour.

As you can see, the Take a Tour gives us a guided look at how to use

the Build Your Own Earth interface.

The first step is selecting which model simulation that we would like to view.

We can choose many different ones via the drop-down menus.

For example, either the Recent Earths, as shown.

The Ancient Earths, from the drop-down list here.

And the Alien Earths, from the drop-down list here.

Some simulations have multiple options.

So if we go to Recent Earths, select the CO2.

You can see that there are different simulations and different options that

we have here and you can see secondary drop-down menu associated with that.

As you can see, if we select these different options, you can see how these

values change in these Earth properties box, this green, rounded rectangle.

For example, if we go from the CO2 Low simulation,

to the CO2 in the year 2100 as,

from the the IPCCA 1F1 CO2 scenario,

this blue bar changes from 200 parts per million to 1,000 parts per million.

Changing different variables has different responses.

For example, if we were to change the axial tilt from 0

degrees to the axial tilt of 90 degrees,

you can see the differences in the way the Earth rotates on its axis.

Finally, after we have selected the model that we would like to view,

we can select a climate property.

These are arranged in four different categories.

Atmosphere, Ice, Land, and Ocean.

Some of these variables will have different levels associated with them.

For example, mean temperature will be either at the surface,

250 hectopascals, 500 hectopascals, or 700 hectopascals.

Finally, at the end of this, after selecting our variable,

we can click View model when we have chosen an appropriate model

that we'd like to see on the next page.

So from this, lets select the Current Day simulation.

So we'd want to go into Recent and click on Current Day 2015.

Let's start off by viewing the mean surface temperature,

which should be the default.

And then click View Model.

As you see, we now have the surface temperature up in the climate viewer.

You are now able to either play or pause the climate viewer at

any given month, so that we can actually look at each month specifically.

And if you would like to keep this animation going,

you can change the animation speed to set your rate of play,

either Slower or Faster.

You're also able to change the view of how you actually look at each one of these

model parameters.

So if we'd like to see the graph centered on the Pacific Ocean

versus the Atlantic Ocean, we can click 180 degrees.

If you would like to see map centered at the North Pole, we can click N.

And if we'd like to see the graph centered at the South Pole, we can click S.

Let's go back to our Prime Meridian view, which is centered over the Atlantic Ocean.

We can also add another Earth to the viewer for comparison.

To do this, we would select the Add Earth 2 button.

From this, we are presented with the same drop-down menu that we

had from the beginning.

And from this, so let's look at another simulation.

For example, the No Greenhouse Gas simulation and click Next.

You are then able to bring up this climate model view to continue.

So now we have two earths.

Let's adjust the speed a little bit to make it a little bit slower.

And now we have two earths side by side, next to each other.

We now see that we have a different slider and it can move from side to side

to see more of each one of these earths.

We can change the orientation of the slider to go from east

to west to north and south, to actually look at how

these different earth simulations actually change.

If you ever forget what properties that the earth that you have selected has,

you are able to toggle back to the View Properties screen,

which will bring you back to the splash screen that we have seen already.

This will show you the different parameters that are present

within the earth.

So that, for example, today's Current Day 2015 simulation, we have 400 parts

per million of CO2, 326 parts per billion of nitrous oxide, and

all the other parameters that are valid for today.

Clicking the View Climate Model button brings you back to the climate screen.

It's easy enough to switch between different climate parameters.

So changing these climate properties from this drop-down menu, for example,

if we want to see the total precipitation, we can select these, and

switch them at any time.

Finally, if we have actually come to the end, and you want to stop and

create an image, for example, say that we want to look at the differences

in July precipitation between this Current Day simulation and

this No Greenhouse Gas simulation.

We can click this button here in the upper corner,

which will actually download a specific image for you.

Thank you for watching this tour and walk-through.

The next video will go over different climate properties and

how to interpret them based upon the Current Day simulation.

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