Development of a Weather Forecasting Code: A Case Study

Computational science is increasingly supporting advances in scientific and engineering knowledge. The unique constraints of these types of projects result in a development process that differs from the process more traditional information technology projects use. This article reports the results of the sixth case study conducted under the support of the Darpa High Productivity Computing Systems Program. The case study aimed to investigate the technical challenges of code development in this environment, understand the use of development tools, and document the findings as concrete lessons learned for other developers´ benefit. The project studied here is a major component of a weather forecasting system of systems. It includes complex behavior and interaction of several individual physical systems (such as the atmosphere and the ocean). This article describes the development of the code and presents important lessons learned.