SMIP-2 and SMIP-2/HFP Diagnostic Subproject Participation and Collaboration Protocol

1. Subproject structure

Analysis of SMIP-2 and SMIP-2/HFP (hereafter SMIP) and associated simulations will be coordinated through a set of diagnostic subprojects. There is no a priori limit to the number of subprojects that are possible. The SMIP Panel will maintain a list of proposed projects and attempt to ensure they are coordinated appropriately with one another and with the modeling community. It is anticipated that diagnostic subprojects will focus on evaluating and verifying seasonal forecasts in novel and interesting ways and on in-depth analysis of processes, phenomena, and regional characteristics affecting the forecasts.

2. Subproject responsibilities

SMIP is a community-based effort and participants must strive to ensure that the diagnostic projects are carried out in an efficient and equitable manner. WGSIP will organize the subproject summaries on the SMIP website.  Diagnostic subproject leaders should keep modeling groups informed of model data usage and solicit comment from modeling groups whose data were used in an analysis before submitting a study for peer-reviewed publication. 

While some quality control is performed on the data sets involved there is always the possibility that some suspicious data may be uncovered after the data has been made available. If a subproject discovers an error, it should be reported immediately so that it may be corrected.

3. Collaboration protocol

Equal treatment of all modeling groups: Modeling groups participate in SMIP with the expectation that their data will be included in SMIP diagnostic studies and analyses. In preparing manuscripts for journal publications a subproject may, however, choose to focus on results from only a few models that most clearly illustrate each point.  At some level, however, results of all available models should be compared collectively .

Clarifying the implications of results: It should be clearly noted that the results of a specific subproject do not necessarily reflect the overall performance of the models whose results are analyzed. For example, scores ranking the performance of SMIP forecasts may yield very different results, depending on the aspect examined.

Authorship: This issue is often a problem in large projects. Here we propose a compromise that reflects the sentiments of many subproject leaders and modelers, namely that 1) no individual should receive co-authorship in an SMIP study without directly contributing to that study, and 2) the modeling groups deserve recognition for their participation in SMIP. The suggested compromise is straightforward: For all reports and papers resulting from their analysis of SMIP simulations, subproject leaders should include in the authorship listing the phrase, "Participating SMIP -2 modeling groups." For example:

M. Brian¹, J. Smith¹, and Participating SMIP -2 modeling groups²

¹University of John Doe

²List of all groups whose model output was used.

Modeling group representatives may be given the opportunity to actively participate in diagnostic subprojects of interest. When a modeling group representative expresses an interest in participating in a subproject, he or she should expect to contribute at a high enough level to earn explicit co-authorship. The leaders of diagnostic subproject agree to use their professional judgment to determine what constitutes a sufficient contribution to qualify for co-authorship.