This section will describe some of the practical tests that can and should be run with CCSM to validate model changes. The section will be expanded in the future.
Anyone making changes to the CCSM is strongly advised to do a short exact-restart test of the model. This involves making a 5 day startup/hybrid/branch run plus a 5 day continuation run and a 10 day startup/hybrid/branch run covering the same period. At the end of the 10 days, both runs must produce exactly the same answers. This can be verified by differencing the model restart files.