LIVVkit

LIVVkit architecture illustrating how the interface is used to schedule a series of analyses. Analysis codes are pulled from required bundles, components, and extensions, and then the analysis is executed in parallel.

The Land Ice Verification and Validation Toolkit (LIVVkit) is an open-source, Python-based software package that helps earth system modelers to evaluate and improve the behavior and interaction of continental-scale, dynamic ice sheet models.

LIVVkit assists ice sheet modelers by focusing on two basic techniques to produce credible models —verification and validation. Verification ensures that all model aspects are accurately constructed, and validation tests how capable models are at representing the real world.

A robust and automated verification and validation process for ice sheet model development can now be coordinated through a new, robust, Python-based extensible software package, the Land Ice Verification and Validation toolkit (LIVVkit). Incorporated into the typical ice sheet model development cycle, it provides numerical verification, software verification, performance validation, and physical validation analyses on a variety of platforms. LIVVkit operates on sets of regression test and reference datasets, and provides comparisons for a suite of community prioritized tests, including configuration and parameter variations, bit-for-bit evaluation, and plots of model variables to indicate where differences occur. LIVVkit also provides an easily extensible framework to incorporate and analyze results of new intercomparison projects, new observation data, and new computing platforms.