Testing for WRF Version 2.2
The testing for the WRF version 2.2 was conducted
by numerous individuals, internally and externally of NCAR, including
staff at DTC, NOAA GSD, DoD AFWA, and NOAA NCEP. The testing consisted
of a broad spectrum of investigations: architecture ports, compiler
version tests, bit-for-bit comparisons, restart tests, test-case
1-way and 2-way nesting forecasts, physics interoperability between
NMM and ARW, 4-km convective forecasts, high-resolution hurricane
tracks with automated moving nests, real-time
runs (22 km, and 36/12 km) at NCAR/MMM, cycling tests with
variational assimilation, along with tests conducted by developers
prior to introducing new features (urban canopy model, analyis
and observsation nudging, CAM radiation scheme). Also new with
this release is the pre-processing package WPS (replacing the
WRF SI), requiring it's own tests for timing, parallelism, domain
configurations, interpolation, input sources, and porting issues.
Following is a brief description of the testing for the version
2.2 release of the WRF modeling system.
Automated Tests
A large amount of the weekly testing of the
WRF code is handled through suites of very short forecasts that
determine if serial, OpenMP, and MPI outputs are bitwise identical.
These automated regression tests are conducted locally at NCAR
on three architectures: IBM/AIX/xlf, DEC-HP/OSF1/f90, and Intel32/FC/pgf90.
For each of these machines, short forecasts are conducted
with several physics options, with real-data and idealized cases,
for ARW and NMM cores. Subsets of these tests are re-run for nesting,
fully optimized, RSL and RSL_LITE, 8-byte reals, netcdf/grib/binary
output, and analysis and observation nudging.
In addition to these more exhaustive tests,
a single run of the testing suite is conducted each on local AMD64/FC/pg90
and SGI/Irix64/f90 machines (each with a total of approximately
35 very short forecasts).
Smoke Tests
On the IBM, DEC-HP, and Intel32 systems, several
nesting 24-h forecasts are conducted with the distributed-memory,
fully-optimized code (all 30/10 km). These include a 1-way nesting
forecast using ndown, a 2-way nesting forecast with a single coarse-grid
input file, a 2-way nesting forecast with both a coarse and a
fine grid input, and a 2-way nest with a specified moving inner
domain.
The WPS package has a small test that runs through
several domains (CONUS, southern Europe, and New Zealand). For
each of these domains, several input Grib files are selected (eight
for CONUS, one for Europe, and two for New Zealand). Each of these
initializations produces a 6-h, 30-km forecast. For domains with
multiple initial sources, visual comparisons of the forecasts
are conducted.
Specialized Tests
A bit-for-bit test with a nested forecast is
used to verify that the restart capability in WRF is correctly
working.
A few local users build and run serial versions
of the WRF code on Darwin systems with the xlf compiler.
Thanks are sent out to vendors from Cray, SGI,
and NEC who tested a pre-release version of the WRF model.
Architectures with Regression Tests
bluevista AIX
xlfrte 10.1.0.2
bluesky AIX (to be retired soon)
xlfrte 8.1.1.6
joshua1 DEC-HP OSF1 5.1
HP Fortran Compiler V5.5A-3548-48D88
bay-mmm Linux 2.6.17-1.2157_FC5smp
pgf90 6.1-6 32-bit target on x86 Linux
tempest IRIX64 tempest 6.5 07080049 IP35
MIPSpro Compilers: Version 7.30
lightning Linux ln0126en 2.6.5-7.147-smp x86_64
pgf90 6.2-3 64-bit target on x86-64 Linux
Architectures with Serial-processing Smoke Tests
Darwin
cowitch Linux cowitch 2.6.17-1.2157_FC5
pgf90 6.1-6 32-bit target on x86 Linux
