Published Paper

Inserted: 24 feb 2022
Last Updated: 6 mar 2024

Journal: Journal of Computational Physics
Volume: 469
Pages: 111542
Year: 2022
Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcp.2022.111542
Links: PDF

Abstract:

We present a new implementation of the geometric method of Cullen & Purser (1984) for solving the semi-geostrophic Eady slice equations which model large scale atmospheric flows and frontogenisis. The geometric method is a Lagrangian discretisation, where the PDE is approximated by a particle system. An important property of the discretisation is that it is energy conserving. We restate the geometric method in the language of semi-discrete optimal transport theory and exploit this to develop a fast implementation that combines the latest results from numerical optimal transport theory with a novel adaptive time-stepping scheme. Our results enable a controlled comparison between the Eady-Boussinesq vertical slice equations and their semi-geostrophic approximation. We provide further evidence that weak solutions of the Eady-Boussinesq vertical slice equations converge to weak solutions of the semi-geostrophic Eady slice equations as the Rossby number tends to zero.