The International Land Model Benchmarking (ILAMB) system: Design, theory, and implementation

Earth system models exhibit a high degree of spread in predictions of land biogeochemistry, biogeophysics, and hydrology, which are sensitive to forcing from other model components. Based on insights from prior land model evaluation studies and community workshops, the authors developed an open source model benchmarking software package that generates graphical diagnostics and scores model performance in support of the International Land Model Benchmarking (ILAMB) project.

Employing a suite of in situ, remote sensing, and reanalysis data sets, the ILAMB package performs comprehensive model assessment across a wide range of land variables and generates a hierarchical set of web pages containing statistical analyses and figures designed to provide the user insights into strengths and weaknesses of multiple models or model versions. Described here is the benchmarking philosophy and mathematical methodology embodied in the most recent implementation of the ILAMB package.