[GO-ESSP] Call for submissions: IEEE Software Special Issue on Climate Change: Software, Science and Society

[V. Balaji]

IEEE Software Special Issue on Climate Change: Software, Science and
Society

Submission Deadline: 8 April 2011
Publication (tentative): Nov/Dec 2011

A vast software infrastructure underpins our ability to understand
climate change, assess the implications, and form suitable policy
responses. This software infrastructure allows large teams of
scientists to construct very complex models out of many interlocking
parts, and further allows scientists, activists and policymakers to
share data, explore scenarios, and validate assumptions. The extent of
this infrastructure is often invisible (as infrastructure often is,
until it breaks down), both to those who rely on it, and to interested
observers, such as politicians, journalists, and the general public.
Yet weaknesses in this software (whether real or imaginary) will
impede our ability to make progress on what may be the biggest
challenge faced by humanity in the 21st Century.

This special issue of IEEE Software will explore the challenges in
developing the software infrastructure for understanding and
responding to climate change. Our aim is to help bridge the gap
between the software community and the climate science community, by
soliciting a collection of articles that explain the nature and extent
of this software infrastructure, the technical challenges it poses,
and the current state-of-the-art.

We invite papers covering any of the software challenges involved in
creating this technical infrastructure, but please note that we are
not soliciting papers that discuss the validity of the science itself,
or which take sides in the policy debate on climate change.

We especially welcome review papers, which explain the current
state-of-the-art in some specific aspect of climate software in an
accessible way, and roadmap papers, which describe the challenges in
the construction and validation of this software. Suitable topics for
the special issue include (but are not restricted to):

- Construction, verification and validation of computational models
   and data analysis tools used in climate science;

- Frameworks, coupling strategies and software integration issues for
   earth system modeling;

- Challenges of scale and complexity in climate software, including
   high data volumes and throughputs, massive parallelization and
   performance issues, numerical complexity, and coupling complexity;

- Challenges of longevity and evolution of climate models codes,
   including legacy code, backwards compatibility, and computational
   reproducibility;

- Experiences with model ensembles and model inter-comparison
   projects, particularly as these relate to software verification and
   validation;

- Meta-data standards and data management for earth system data,
   including the challenge of making models and data self-describing;

- Coordination of cross-disciplinary teams in the development of
   integrated assessment and decision support systems;

- The role of open science and usable simulation tools in increasing
   public accessibility of climate science and public participation in
   climate policy discussions;

- Case studies and lessons learned from application of software
   engineering techniques within climate science.

Manuscripts must not exceed 4,700 words including figures and tables,
which count for 200 words each. Submissions in excess of these limits
may be rejected without refereeing. The articles we deem within the
theme's scope will be peer-reviewed and are subject to editing for
magazine style, clarity, organization, and space. Be sure to include
the name of the theme you are submitting for.

Articles should have a practical orientation, and be written in a
style accessible to software practitioners. Overly complex, purely
research-oriented or theoretical treatments are not appropriate.
Articles should be novel. IEEE Software does not republish material
published previously in other venues, including other periodicals and
formal conference/workshop proceedings, whether previous publication
was in print or in electronic form.

Questions?

For more information about the special issue, contact the Guest Editors:

Steve Easterbrook, University of Toronto, Canada (sme at cs.toronto.edu)

Reinhard Budich, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Germany
(reinhard.budich at zmaw.de)

Paul N. Edwards, University of Michigan, USA (pne at umich.edu)

V. Balaji, Princeton University (balaji at princeton.edu)
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V. Balaji                               Office:  +1-609-452-6516
Head, Modeling Systems Group, GFDL      Home:    +1-212-253-6662
Princeton University                    Email: v.balaji at noaa.gov