We plan to shut down the web server hosting these pages some time around 9AM BST on the 8th of September to upgrade the RAM and processors. This isn't expected to be a long procedure, but whilst it is taking place BOINC clients will not be able to contact the scheduler and the main pages and PHP boards will not be available. The upload servers and BOINC boards will continue as normal.

Thanks for your patience during this upgrade and the earlier, and much more extensive, database upgrades.

Due to problems noted with missing results and credits, the database is undergoing some work for a few hours to reinsert the missing records. We apologize for the inconvenience and stress any missing credits may have caused - however we hope to have the database back up (and missing credits returned) within a few hours.

The upgrade is completed, thanks for your patience!

We are replacing a database server starting this Sunday 5PM BST (12M EDT/9AM PDT), so we will probably be down through Monday morning. This is a much needed upgrade and we appreciate your patience during this outage. The PHP bulletin boards will still be available (as will this website), but the CPDN/BOINC database access (credits/trickles/new signups/etc) will not be available.

Facebook users who are not currently running BOINC may be interested in a new application sponsored by Intel and developed in association with GridRepublic and BOINC — Progress Thru Processors. The public beta has been launched today and includes our project amongst those supported.

For more information please refer to the application's Facebook page.

The BBC Climate Change experiment is now finished and we will be shutting the project down, although we will be continuing to release similar experiments via the main CPDN site. We'd like to thank all those participants who have donated computing time to help us with the BBC project — the results which have been returned will be used as part of a submission to the IPCC AR5 (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report). The BBC's summary of the results can be seen here.

There's currently a shortage of space on some of our upload servers and one has suffered a power supply failure. The failed supply will be replaced shortly but there will be a wait whilst new RAID arrays arrive to take the load off the other servers. More information will be posted in the PHP board news thread as we get it.

CPDN extends its warmest congratulations to Professor Keith Shine of Reading University's Meteorology Department on his election as Fellow of the Royal Society. Keith is a leading international authority on atmospheric radiative transfer and his work deals with, among many other things, the energy budget of the climate system and identifying the processes that drive climate change. He is a recognised expert in quantifying the radiative forcing of various climate change mechanisms, together with their associated uncertainties. His election to FRS recognises an outstanding research career in this field. Well done Keith!

SMITH SCHOOL OF ENTERPRISE AND THE ENVIRONMENT
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

Post Doctoral Research Assistant - Climate Modelling

Three year post

Grade 7: Salary £28,839 to £35,469 (with a discretionary range to £38,757)

Post Reference LD-09-004

The new Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment in the Social Sciences Division of the University of Oxford is aimed at pioneering ways for private enterprise, government and academics to work towards solutions to the environmental issues of the 21st century. The School's Director is Professor Sir David King.

We aim to recruit a post-doctoral climate modeller to work in the newly established Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, in the Social Sciences Division of the University of Oxford. This is a joint appointment between the Smith School and the Department of Physics. The post holder will be based 50% in the Smith School offices and 50% in the Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics (AOPP) sub-department within Physics.

The primary task of the post-holder is to design and conduct climate modelling experiments using the Met Office's Unified Model on linux systems within the university and setting up ensemble experiments for the distributed computing infrastructure provided by the climateprediction.net project, coordinated by the Oxford e-Research Centre. Most of the work of this PDRA would be setting up new experiments to explore a much wider range of scenarios than are traditionally considered with general circulation models (GCMs).

The successful candidate will have excellent programming skills and experience of GCM climate modelling as well as an ability to work on collaborative interdisciplinary projects.

A full job description and further particulars are available from the website www.smithschool.ox.ac.uk or the School's Administrator, Karen Eveleigh at personnel@smithschool.ox.ac.uk. A PDF of the advertisement is available here and of the job description here.

The closing date for applications is noon on Friday 15th May 2009. Please include the post reference LD-09-004 in all correspondence.

We're experiencing hardware problems with one of our servers and there will therefore be some unplanned downtime whilst we repair it; exactly how long is not known at present but we hope to have something up within 48 hours. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience.