Feature #2206 fix_spread_md

[sethlinden]

Expected Differences

• Do these changes introduce new tools, command line arguments, or configuration file options? [No]
  
  If yes, please describe:
  

• Do these changes modify the structure of existing or add new output data types (e.g. statistic line types or NetCDF variables)? [No]
  
  If yes, please describe:
  

Pull Request Testing

• Describe testing already performed for these changes:
  

No testing for this. Just made sure the vx_util library compiled (after a change in num_array.cc)

• Recommend testing for the reviewer(s) to perform, including the location of input datasets, and any additional instructions:
  

Could run unit test unit_ensemble_stat.xml to verify output

• Do these changes include sufficient documentation updates, ensuring that no errors or warnings exist in the build of the documentation? [No]

• Do these changes include sufficient testing updates? [Yes]

There are unit tests to check the output for SPREAD_MD and CRPS_EMP_FAIR (run unit_ensemble_stat.xml)

• Will this PR result in changes to the test suite? [No]
  
  If yes, describe the new output and/or changes to the existing output:
  

• Please complete this pull request review by [Fill in date].
  

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[JohnHalleyGotway]

I approve of these changes.

I reviewed the differences flagged by the GHA run. I see that the differences occur in 21 files, all of which contain the ECNT line type:

egrep -i "ERROR:|file1:" comp_dir.log | egrep -B 1 ERROR | grep file1 | wc -l
21

Spot checking a few of these files, I see that the differences are confined to the CRPS_EMP_FAIR and SPREAD_MD columns, as expected.

In addition, I compiled this feature branch locally, and did some manual testing with Stat-Analysis using a single ORANK input line:

head -3 out/ensemble_stat/ensemble_stat_20100101_120000V_orank.txt | tail -1 > orank.txt
bin/stat_analysis -lookin orank.txt -job aggregate_stat -line_type ORANK -out_line_type ECNT

That reports SPREAD_MD = 0.64667. Using the 6 ensemble member values to compute via R produces the same result:

R
d = c(4.4, 4.3, 3.3, 3.8, 3.1, 3.6)
mean(dist(d))
[1] 0.6466667

[JohnHalleyGotway]

@sethlinden I see that this PR has been approved for a while now but never merged. Generally, we expect the person who submitted the PR to do merge after it's approved. But I'll go ahead and merge this one now since I know its complete.

[sethlinden]

@JohnHalleyGotway sorry about that, forgot to merge it. Thanks for doing that.