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Testing Information for Contributors

     Code Testing by Prospective Contributors

Developers seeking to add code to WRF should consult the document Information for WRF Code Contributors. This describes the WRF coding standards, code testing, and code submission procedures. The required types of testing for new WRF code prior to submission are: (a) software testing and (b) case testing. The materials for the software and case testing can be obtained through this page.

The purpose of the software testing is to check different compilers and model configurations for bit-for-bit reproducibility. The software testing is done through the "WRF Testing Framework" utility (see below).

The purpose of case testing is to confirm code robustness and reasonableness through the running of short simulations. Robustness is addressed by running cases for summer and winter. Reasonableness of results is checked by comparing the new output of the modified WRF with output in existing plots of selected simulations (provided below), or by otherwise reviewing the new output to make sure it is reasonable. Prospective contributors should do reasonableness testing both for one of the summer cases and for one of the winter cases.

 

     Software Testing

Modified WRF code must be run through the WRF Testing Framework (WTF). The WTF is designed to build and test WRF compilation and running, and to analyze test results for versions of the model with new modifications. The WTF is described here: WRF Software Testing.The WTF materials can be obtained from the WRF users download page at: WRF Testing Framework.

 

     Case Testing

Testing for at least one summer case and one winter case, in the form of at least a 24-hr forecast for each, is required. The developer may choose the specific cases from among the ones listed below. Input files for these are provided below.

     Summer Cases

Listed below are the Metgrid files for six test cases from Summer 2010. The domain is over the US, with a grid size of 20 km covering 290x190 points. The namelist.input template has 40 eta levels. For the testing, developers may generate 24-hr forecasts using any of the initialization times. To assist the reasonableness review, provided below are verification plots to compare against one of the summer cases run.

       Domain map

A map of the domain for the test cases is here: domain map.
Metgrid Files
(times represent initial times)
2010060100
2010060500
2010061100*
2010061500
2010062000
2010062500
Namelists
namelist.wps
namelist.input
Verification Plots**
ncl_plot.2010061112
ncl_plot.2010061200
*This case (2010061100) is also provided as a case to check if the results are reasonable. Plots for various fields from a reference simulation of this case are provided below for comparison purposes.
**To create your own plots to compare with the verification plots provided above, please use plot.ncl and make changes as necessary.

     Winter Cases

Listed below are the Metgrid files for six test cases from Winter 2012. The domain is over the US, with a grid size of 20 km covering 290x190 points. The namelist.input template has 40 eta levels. For the testing, developers may generate 24-hr forecasts using any of the initialization times. To assist the reasonableness review, provided below are verification plots to compare against one of the winter cases run.

       Domain map

A map of the domain for the test cases is here: domain map.

Metgrid Files
(times represent initial times)
2012020100
2012020212
2012020300*
2012020400
2012020512
2012020700
2012020812
Namelists
namelist.wps
namelist.input
Verification Plots**
ncl_plot.2012020300
ncl_plot.2012020400
* This case (2012020300) is also provided as a case to check if the results are reasonable. Plots for various fields from a reference simulation of this case are also provided, for comparison purposes.
** To create your own plots to compare with the ones provided here, please use plot.ncl, and make changes as necessary.

     Updated Code

If you are considering contributing code to WRF, please use the most recent WRF release or obtain a current version of the WRF repository code from a member of the Developers' Committee. The most recent release may be obtained from the WRF download site, shown below.
WRF Downloads

 

 



 
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