Modeling of ocean overflows using statically and dynamically adaptive vertical discretization techniques

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The goal of the project is the development of a novel vertical discretization that can substantially alleviate or resolve a number of shortcomings associated with the standard vertical coordinates used in the current general circulation models. Any significant improvement in the quality of the vertical approximation achieved in a computationally efficient way can greatly help to address several issues seriously affecting the performance of numerical ocean models, particularly in the context of climate studies. This includes physically consistent treatment of irregular topography, overflows, and vertical mixing. The new discretization will be constructed to capture the most important flow features using locally adapted vertical grid structure within an unstructured prismatic mesh. Those ideas will be further developed by adding a procedure that enables the vertical mesh layers to dynamically change according to the flow conditions. The new methodology incurs negligible computational overhead and preserves all local conservation properties of the algorithm; it will be tested and evaluated using overflow scenarios including the Strait of Gibraltar and the Nordic Seas Overflows. The numerical scheme is based on the discontinuous Galerkin finite element method implemented in UTBEST3D that has a proven track record of highly efficient utilization of massively parallel computer systems.