This page should be replaced by JCM main menu, as soon as the documentation files (200K) have finished loading. This may be a short while after the model appears (depending on your web connection). The regional climate map data (80K) also loads after the rest of the model.

Note: Once this page has been replaced by the main menu, all datasets, modules and documentation have already loaded, except for additional regional climate map datasets and additional languages. So, in some web browsers, you can disconnect from the web and continue to explore JCM offline (if your browser doesn't allow this, you can always download a JCM package to use offline).

Meanwhile, below is a short introduction to JCM.

Intro / Concept

Future climate change is our choice, not our fate. If you ask "so what will the temperature be in 2100", I reply, "well that's up to you, which way do you think we should go?".

The choices are not easy. The climate-human system has many complex interacting components, so we need models to help us explore and balance the risks. Yet the ultimate "integrated assessment model" is the global network of people's heads, so climate models must connect better with people...

JCM is based on scientific formulae from IPCC-TAR, and can replicate key TAR predictions. It is also evolving further to investigate new research questions.

Yet JCM is also very easy to use. Drag the arrows (policy options or scientific uncertainties), and see the effect instantly.

In JCM everything is connected, from emissions to impacts (or sometimes, the other way). Try the "flowchart" and click on plots or modules to find the interactions.

There are ~20 panels and many ways to arrange them. Please experiment with plot and layout menus at the top. To see more or less curves, controls and options, use the complexity menu.

JCM is intended as a tool for global dialogue, so the model already has translations in ten languages (menu at the top)! Gradually, this is being extended to the documentation.

JCM has extensive documentation to help you explore the topic. Clicking on a plot, menu, or arrow control, will summon specific pages (the "help" button at the top of the model switches this effect on/off). This documentation adjusts according to the current setup of the model. You can also use the search tool, or the menus introducing the topic from a variety of conceptual approaches.

If you want to use JCM offline, you can download a package (see the link from "technical" menu -after the doc has loaded).

JCM is not a simple one-message tool. Indeed, it has been used in climate negotiation games to demonstrate widely varying points of view, and to help explain apparent contradictions in climate science. But the fundamental message remains - together, and within limits, we can choose our future climate.

If you like JCM and have suggestions for improvements, please write to ben@chooseclimate.org

Note, this documentation frame is resizable (just drag the dividing bar).