A Better Understanding of the Effects of Software Defects in Weather Simulation
Dong-ping Xu, Daniel Berleant, Gene Takle, Zaitao Pan · 2004
We investigate the impact of bugs in a well-known weather simulation system, MM5. The findings help fill a gap in knowledge about the dependability of this widely used system, leading to both new understanding and further questions. In the research reported here, bugs were artificially added to MM5. Their effects were analyzed to statistically understand the effects of bugs on MM5. In one analysis, different source files were compared with respect to their susceptibility to bugs, allowing conclusions regarding for which files software testing is likely to be particularly valuable. In another analysis, we compare the effects of bugs on sensitivity analysis to their effects on forecasting. The results have implications for the use of MM5 and perhaps for weather and climate simulation more generally. 1.