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Use of a flux‐limited scheme for vertical advection in a GCM
Author(s) -
Thuburn John
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
quarterly journal of the royal meteorological society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.744
H-Index - 143
eISSN - 1477-870X
pISSN - 0035-9009
DOI - 10.1002/qj.49711951107
Subject(s) - advection , limiter , flux limiter , boundary layer , flux (metallurgy) , environmental science , momentum (technical analysis) , moisture , gcm transcription factors , meteorology , mechanics , atmospheric sciences , climatology , mathematics , geology , physics , general circulation model , computer science , climate change , materials science , thermodynamics , telecommunications , finance , economics , metallurgy , oceanography
A general method of constructing one‐dimensional total‐variation diminishing advection scehmes using flux limiters is presented. A simple scheme that uses the Van Leer limiter is demonstrated in some idealized tests. The scheme is compared with the more usual centred‐difference scheme in a global circulation model where the schemes are used to calculate the vertical advection of tracers, moisture, temperature and momentum. In climate simulations noise is generated by the centred‐difference scheme in tracer and temperature profiles near the tropopause, and in the moisture profile near the tropical boundary‐layer inversion; this is eliminated when the flux‐limited scheme is used. The use of this improved scheme for vertical advection is a cheap and simple way to remove these errors from global circulation models.