Help Youth Researchers Repair Leading Climate Models

We are living in an era in which world leaders use models of the climate and ecology to help them make decisions that impact everyone’s future. These data-driven tools have a wide influence, guiding policy agendas, media coverage, and they even make their way into the classroom.

Here's the problem: Our youth-led research team has identified forms of fossil fuel funded misinformation that has become congealed into leading climate models. Right now, we are the only research team that is "in process" to remove the broken, fossil-fuel-funded metrics from the models, and due to IPCC deadlines, we have a matter of weeks to do it. If we don't remove these metrics now, the deadline will pass, and these models will be locked in as they are for the next 7 years, meaning we won't be able to change them again until the early 2030s.

Some of the changes that urgently need to be made:

These changes urgently need to happen to leading climate models, and our lab is the only one in the running to do it in time for the deadline.

But here's our problem: Due to budget cuts, including and especially those initiated by DOGE, our lab's funding has vanished. Without funds, there is no way we can get this work done.

Reasons we need funds:

Who are we? We are a team of youth-researchers affiliated with BasedMIP, a project at UC Davis to develop better models of climate and environment. You can learn more about our team here: basedmip.ucdavis.edu. In July, thanks to the generous support of everyone who donated to our crowdfunding campaign, we were able to attend a leading climate data gathering in the UK and present our research. We thought this meeting was the finish line, however, while we were there, we learned some fossil-fuel-funded misinformation is about to be congealed into the leading climate models. If our work from July is going to matter, we need to get the misinformation out of these models, but we only have a matter of weeks to raise the funds we need to stay in the running to do it.

What happened? Over the last 6 years, researchers with BasedMIP have been working towards intervening in leading climate models and data sets, developing the knowledge and positing to allow us to make these changes. However, early this year, a wave of federal "DOGE" cuts sent our university into chaos, with key budgets being eliminated or put into limbo. We'd hoped things would clear up by now, but they haven't. We need a full time graduate assistant from BasedMIP to help guide this project: right now, there are no instruction manuals, and doing this work means navigating a whole bunch of ad hoc systems (both in the code/data, and in the institutions that manage the data). If we don't have this guidance, this project will be cooked. We need some one who knows the roles to point us in the right way so we can get to work.

What the funds are going towards:

Between now and December, a series of ad hoc deadlines will be unfolding, along with gatherings by different IPCC-affiliated modeling communities to wrap up their parts of the models. We've identified at least one gathering we need to attend in person so we can advocate for the repairs we've identified, and keep track of which repairs they fail to make so (if that happens) we can build an alternative model. Our case to have this model adopted by the IPCC will be much greater if we can attend this other gathering (the Post-Growth Modeling community's gathering on Sept 28-29th). Our goal is to send as many members of our team as possible to this gathering so they can sit on different panels/tracks and keep track of the design choices that that community makes (and hopefully contribute!). If that community adopts all of our recommendations, we'll direct our energy after that towards refining the parameters of their model. If they don't, we'll launch our own model with will be specified in such a way to clearly indicate where we have made unique repairs. These models repairs are urgent, and we believe that once they are made, it will greatly help world leaders and the public better organize efforts to combat climate change. Current climate models are filled with fossil-fuel-funded misinformation that distract policymakers at best, and that cause coalitions to fall apart at worse, which forestalls policy. We have got to get these fossil-fuel-funded metrics out of leading climate models!

Right now is a rare window in which it's possible to make repairs to leading climate models. Soon that window will close, and after that, the leading climate models will get "locked in" and we won't be able to repair them again for another 7 years. This is the last chance to make these repairs. Will you help us?

What's the deadline schedule look like? Basically, there is a series of deadlines between now and the end of December, all of which we have to meet if we are to have hope of having these changes in the running. These deadlines pertain to various IPCC-affiliated modeling communities, and it is going to mean working to get our research reformatted for each affiliated modeling community, in accordance with their deadlines. The first big deadline is September 15th, and after that, there will be deadlines every 2 weeks until the end of December. We need to be able to focus as much attention as possible on this work between now and then. The more attention we put into getting our repairs perfect (or as perfect as possible), the more likely they are to be adopted. It's tedious work, like building a ship in a bottle. Interruptions are bad. We're trying to make sure our team is able to stay focused during this rare window in which these repairs can happen.

Who's part of this research team? We are youth researchers from UC Berkeley, UC Davis, and the Sunrise Movement. We'll be adding everyone's bios and information soon. We are currently building teams organized via a DeCal class at UC Berkeley and via Davis Data Driven Change (D3C) at UC Davis. We're also in conversation with organizers from the Sun Rise movement.

What is this youth led research going to look like?

After the PGMC gathering in late September, we are going to break into working groups refining different metrics within this new modeling paradigm. As this is unfolding, our GSR will be working to help us organize our formatting, so our work can be properly submitted to all relevant IPCC-affiliated modeling communities in time for the rolling series of deadlines.

Why are funds needed ASAP?

We need to buy our plane tickets to go to the PGMC meeting by Sept 15th, and then, if we are going to properly "buy out" our GSR, that needs to happen by the last week of September.

This is an intense moment in history. There are a lot of fires that need to be put out. We want to do all we can to reduce the number of fires in the future, and to steer towards the best future that's still possible. But how can we do that if there are broken, fossil-fuel-funded metrics in leading climate assessment tools?

This project has the potential to remove some fossil-fuel-funded misinformation from leading climate models that is currently distracting world leaders and the public from taking measures to tackle climate change with the urgency and precision it deserves. We estimate that the changes we are proposing could prevent many millions of unnecessary human deaths and prevent countless animal deaths if they are implemented now, rather than later. But we have no hope of getting these things implemented during this 7-year assessment cycle unless we have the support we need to do the work. Will you help us?

Thank you so much for any and all consideration of our efforts!

Let's steer the planet towards the best outcome that's still possible.