Using automatic differentiation to study the sensitivity of a crop model

Abstract

Automatic Differentiation (AD) is often applied to codes that solve partial differential equations, e.g. in geophysical sciences or Computational Fluid Dynamics. In agronomy, the differentiation of crop models has never been performed since these models are more empirical than fully mecanistic, derived from equations. This study shows the feasibility of constructing the adjoint model of a crop model referent in the agronomic community (STICS) with the TAPENADE tool, and the use of this accurate adjoint to perform some sensitivity analysis. This paper reports on the experience from AD users of the environmental domain, in which AD usage is not very widespread. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.