Journal article
On physical realizability and uncertainty of numerical solutions
A Dömbrack, JD Doyle, TP Lane, RD Sharman, PK Smolarkiewicz
Atmospheric Science Letters | Published : 2005
DOI: 10.1002/asl.100
Abstract
Numerical experiments of the stratified flow past a bell-shaped mountain with a shallow shear layer aloft are performed. Two different approximations of the entropy equation (explicit vs implicit numerical treatment of gravity waves) lead to a substantial discrepancy of the numerical results. As the flow is metastable, it turns out that both solutions are physically realizable and the quality of the solution changes in response to small variations in the accuracy of the numerical approximation. Copyright © 2005 Royal Meteorological Society.
Grants
Awarded by Office of Naval Research
Funding Acknowledgements
This work was supported in part by the USA Department of Energy 'Climate Change Prediction Program' (CCPP) research initiative. J.D. Doyle was supported by the Office of Naval Research's Program Element 0601153N. COAMPS (TM) is a trademark of the Naval Research Laboratory. The numerical computations were performed as part of the special project 'Effect of non-hydrostatic gravity waves on the stratosphere above Scandinavia' at the European Centre for Medium Range Weather prediction (ECMWF).