An Asymptotic-Preserving Dual Formulation Finite-Volume Method for the Thermal Rotating Shallow Water Equations

TL;DR

The paper introduces a second-order asymptotic-preserving dual formulation finite-volume method for the thermal rotating shallow water equations, effectively handling multi-scale geophysical flows with different regimes.

Contribution

It develops a novel dual formulation finite-volume method that combines conservative and primitive forms to accurately simulate multi-scale thermal rotating shallow water flows.

Findings

The method effectively captures both quasi-geostrophic and shock regimes.

It maintains correct asymptotic behavior in low Rossby number flows.

The approach improves robustness across different flow regimes.

Abstract

We propose a new second-order asymptotic-preserving (AP) dual formulation finite-volume (DF-FV) method for the thermal rotating shallow water (TRSW) equations. The TRSW system models geophysical flows characterized by horizontal temperature/density variations, exhibiting multi-scale dynamics due to the coexistence of fast rotational waves and slower advective processes. To efficiently address challenges associated with the multiscale nature of the TRSW system, we follow the DF-FV framework and develop a DF-FV method, in which both the conservative and nonconservative (primitive) forms of the equations are simultaneously solved, allowing the method to exploit the complementary strengths of each representation across different flow regimes. The primitive formulation is better suited for preserving the correct asymptotic behavior in nearly thermal quasi-geostrophic (TQG) regimes characterized by a low Rossby number, while the conservative formulation is essential for robust shock capturing in high-Rossby-number regimes, in which nonconservative discretizations may fail to converge to physically relevant weak solutions.