Special issue  

CMIP5 represents the most ambitious and computer-intensive model inter-comparison project ever attempted. Integrating a new generation of Earth system models and sharing the model results with a broad community has brought with it many significant technical challenges, along with new community-wide efforts to provide the necessary software infrastructure. This special issue will focus on the software that supports the scientific enterprise for CMIP5, including: couplers and coupling frameworks for Earth system models; the Common Information Model and Controlled Vocabulary for describing models and data; The development of the Earth System Grid Federation; the development of new portals for providing data access to different end-user communities; the scholarly publishing of datasets, and studies of the software development and testing processes used for the CMIP5 models. We especially welcome papers that offer comparative studies of the software approaches taken by different groups, and lessons learnt from community efforts to create shareable software components and frameworks.