Karl-Hermann Wieners (MPI-M) will provide insights on the use of the mkexp tools for easily setting up climate model experiments.
Setting up a model experiment is an everyday task in climate science. Yet it seems that it is considered dark magic, confided to select adepts only by passing on voluminous shell scripts that have been around and patched for years. While this kind of decentralized knowledge seems fashionable, not only does it impede proper re-use of scientific work, but it also raises software maintenance issues when propagating new or obsolete features.
There have been several attempts to provide easy to use front ends to model experimentation over the last decade eg. IMDI, setuptools, ecFlow, Rose, or ESM-Tools. Most of these control source code management, building and installation, and experiment setup and submission, and accordingly are very complex.
In contrast, the mkexp tool suite provided by the MPI for Meteorology focuses on a unified command line frontend for experiment setup and submission, based on a model specific library of basic experiments. Karl-Hermann will explain the basic ideas behind this, its application in both climate science and teaching, and its use for the ICON model family.
