Tangents, adjoints and computational complexity in terrestrial carbon modelling

Abstract

Differentiation enters modelling through initialisation, calibration, sensitivity analysis and data assimilation. Automatic differentiation provides tools for augmenting models to calculate the derivatives. Adjoint transformations lead to computational gains in such analyses. The calculation of tangent models by operator overloading provides a reference case against which to assess such gains. This article uses a vector space representation to analyse how special localisation characteristics of the land surface within the earth system might change the computational complexity of calculating derivatives. References

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