Manuscript Types
The following types of manuscripts are considered for peer-reviewed publication in Geoscientific Model Development (GMD) and its discussion forum Geoscientific Model Development Discussions (GMDD):
- Model description papers comprehensively describe the underlying science behind the models, and will also include details often omitted from more traditional papers, such as the numerical schemes employed. The papers should be somewhat more advanced than internal technical reports. For example, the inclusion of discussion of the scope of applicability and limitations of the approach adopted is expected. In order to enable full peer-review of the models, evidence of model output should also be provided, with comparison to standard benchmarks, observations and/or other model output included as appropriate. The publication will typically consist of three parts: the main paper, a user manual, and the source code (ideally supported by some summary outputs from test case simulations). In cases where pre-existing copyright prohibits the publication of source code, this may be omitted. The source code and user manual will not be formally reviewed, but reviewers may make suggestions for improvement if they wish. The main paper must give the model name and version number in the title, the model webpage URL, the hard- and software requirements and the license information. If papers are describing subsequent development to a paper already published in GMD, they will be electronically linked to the previous version(s), and an overview webpage will be created.
- Development and Technical papers describe technical developments relating to model improvements such as the speed or accuracy of numerical integration schemes as well as new parameterisations for processes represented in modules. Also included are papers relating to technical aspects of running models and the reproducibility of results, e.g. assessments of their performance with different compilers, or under different computer architectures. Authors are encouraged to provide code to perform any test cases described in the paper.
- Benchmarking papers discuss work on developing new benchmarks for assessing model performance, or novel ways of comparing model results with observational data.
- Model Inter-comparison project (MIP) description papers contain descriptions of the experimental details and the project protocol, including: discussion of why particular choices were made; highlighting of differences in the application of the protocol by the different groups; and including sufficient descriptions/figures of model results to give an overview of the project.
