Three-dimensional unstructured mesh ocean modelling

Abstract

In this article the advantages and current status of unstructured mesh ocean modelling are reviewed. Future challenges are discussed along with the potential of resulting methods to make a significant impact on ocean modelling over the next decade. These methods are important because they are the only techniques that can simultaneously resolve both small and large scale ocean flows while smoothly varying resolution and conforming to complex coastlines and bathymetry. Realising the full potential of such methods will necessitate the use of dynamic mesh adaptivity. A number of techniques need to be combined and developed from different numerical modelling and geophysical fluid dynamics disciplines in order to create a powerful unstructured mesh ocean model. These are: accurate and robust methods for the discretisation and advection of tracers, density and momentum; the choice of element/cell and satisfaction of the LBB stability condition; representation of hydrostatic and geostrophic balance; the ability to deal with sigma coordinate-like errors associated with the use of unstructured meshes; initial mesh generation to follow complex bathymetry and coastlines; sub-grid scale modelling on unstructured and possibly solution adaptive meshes; scalable solvers and parallel computing. A good solution to each problem is required, and thus the resulting model may be argued to be considerably more complex than traditionally used structured mesh models. It is these topics that are addressed here.