Tired of burning extra CPU cycles by folding proteins and looking for E.T.? Try climateprediction.net, brought to you on BOINC, the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing and the same platform that backs SETI@Home. From the official site:

What is climateprediction.net?

Climateprediction.net is the largest experiment to try and produce a forecast of the climate in the 21st century. To do this, we need people around the world to give us time on their computers - time when they have their computers switched on, but are not using them to their full capacity.

[read more about the experiment]

Why?

Climate change, and our response to it, are issues of global importance, affecting food production, water resources, ecosystems, energy demand, insurance costs and much else. There is a broad scientific consensus that the Earth will probably warm over the coming century; climateprediction.net should, for the first time, tell us what is most likely to happen.

[read more about climate science]

How do I participate?

Windows and Linux users can get started here. Mac OSX users will have to use the beta for now (I've been running it and it seems solid so far). I created an ITP team both for the regular version and the beta. The team names are both ITP and the team IDs are 6006 and 35, respectively.

Here are some captures of the rendered screensaver graphics: