Summer Model: Global Warming
This model depicts the effects of carbon dioxide in two different environments. In the first example, I have a city environment where cars drive around the city. While the cars are driving, they are releasing CO2 into the atmosphere. Once the CO2 reaches a certain level, the sky begins to get filled with smog. In the second example I have a glacier environment where ships sail in the ocean. If the ship comes near the glacier, the CO2 goes up. Once the CO2 reaches a certain level, the glacier begins to melt.
Here is a link to the HLD for this project. HLD
The city part of the Vensim model starts with a Car variable. The slider bar allows you to change the number of cars in the model. The number of cars and the pollution fraction affect how much pollution is let out by the cars. The amount of pollution is the amount of CO2 in the air. That, along with the creation fraction determines the creation of smog. The glacier part of the Vensim model starts with a Ship variable. The slider bar allows you to change the number of ships in the model. The number of ships and the pollution fraction affect how much pollution is let out by the ships. That is the amount of CO2 in the air. That, along with the melting fraction, determines how much of the glacier melts. In my Vensim model, I experimented many times with the amount of cars and even pushing the pollution fraction up to the maximum and minimum values. In every situation I tried, the model worked as expected and did not break. Here is an image of my Vensim model:
A directions on how to use my AgentCubes model can be found in the Description section of model's home page. In my AgentCubes model I added more aspects with different types of cars. I also added a rule that would allow smog to disappear. When trying to change the car, my model broke several times, because it wasn't changing between agents properly. I was able to fix this issue by creating a new agent and then erasing the existing one, instead of trying to use the "change myself" command. I had to do some research to find out how smog can clear up from the sky. From the California Air Resource Board, I found out that you cannot simply get rid of smog. However, if you reduce the amount of CO2 you are emitting for a few days, then the smog tends to clear up in the sky. Since electric cars do not emit CO2, using them will clear up the smog. Here are two images of my AgentCubes Model.
