Assuring the Future? A Look at Validating Climate Model Software

The scientific community studying climate change uses a variety of strategies to assess the correctness of their models. These software systems represent large, sophisticated, fine-grained scientific tools. The validation practices described are thus tailored to a domain in which software and software engineering practices are useful but cannot be allowed to get in the way of the science. In audio interviews, two scientists--Robert Jacob, a computational climate scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, and Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist and climate modeler at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies--discuss what it means to develop and communicate ground-breaking results.