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Recipes for adjoint code construction

Editor: Ronald F. Boisvert Authors:

Thomas KaminskiAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software (TOMS), Volume 24, Issue 4

Pages 437 - 474

https://doi.org/10.1145/293686.293695

Published: 01 December 1998 Publication History

Abstract

Adjoint models are increasingly being developed for use in meteorology and oceanography. Typical applications are data assimilation, model tuning, sensitivity analysis, and determination of singular vectors. The adjoint model computes the gradient of a cost function with respect to control variables. Generation of adjoint code may be seen as the special case of differentiation of algorithms in reverse mode, where the dependent function is a scalar. The described method for adjoint code generation is based on a few basic principles, which permits the establishment of simple construction rules for adjoint statements and complete adjoint subprograms. These rules are presented and illustrated with some examples. Conflicts that occur due to loops and redefinition of variables are also discussed. Direct coding of the adjoint of a more sophisticated model is extremely time consuming and subject to errors. Hence, automatic generation of adjoint code represents a distinct advantage. An implementation of the method, described in this article, is the tangent linear and adjoint model compiler (TAMC).

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Recipes for adjoint code construction

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Copyright © 1998 ACM.

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Publication History

Published: 01 December 1998

Published in TOMS Volume 24, Issue 4

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.future.2024.107512
Dedoussi IHenze DEastham SSpeth RBarrett S(2024)Development of the adjoint of the unified tropospheric–stratospheric chemistry extension (UCX) in GEOS-Chem adjoint v36Geoscientific Model Development10.5194/gmd-17-5689-202417:14(5689-5703)Online publication date: 30-Jul-2024
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