3.2      The CANDIE Forward Time Integration

In the A-grid formulation the temperature and salinity are volume averages for a cell and we interpolate the A-grid velocities to the C-grid cell faces in order to deal with the conservation equations. The basic approach goes as follows. Assume we start out knowing the velocity at both the C-grid (cell face) and the temperature, salinity and velocity at the A-grid (volume average) locations. Suppose further that these quantities are known at two successive times t^o and . Using standard centered differences in space and a leapfrog scheme in time, the temperature T and salinity S are updated to time level . Similarly, the A-grid velocity components U0 and V0 from time level t^o can be updated to the time level t² for the effects of advection, diffusion and Coriolis acceleration. However, the surface pressure is not yet known at the time level t¹, so only an approximation to the pressure driven acceleration can be determined. This approximation is based on the surface pressure field at the initial time level t^o and the density variations at the time level t¹. The correction due to the change in surface pressure between t^o and t¹ must be added on later.

How does DieCAST determine the change in surface pressure between t^o and t¹? Mathematical details are given in Appendix A, but the basic approach is actually quite simple. Given that the velocity field is non-divergent at time t^o, the idea is to determine the surface pressure at time t¹ that is required to insure that the velocity field at time t² remains non-divergent. Any imbalances in continuity associated with errors in the velocity field must be balanced by changing the velocity. Because all other effects have already been accounted for, these velocity changes must be driven by the gradients in the surface pressure difference between the time levels t^o and t¹. To determine an equation for , we first write the horizontal velocity components in terms of the previously estimated values at t² plus the correction associated with the unknown . Forming the depth-integrated continuity equation now results in a simple 2D elliptic equation for . After solving this equation for the horizontal velocity components are adjusted for the additional pressure driven acceleration and the vertical velocity is updated using the 3D continuity equation.

The above paragraph describes the basic idea. However, this approach assumes that the velocity is known at the C-grid locations in order to determine the continuity errors that need to be corrected, but the velocity updates from t^o to t² were actually done at the A-grid locations. Thus, to apply this methodology, one must interpolate the velocities from the A-grid to the C-grid. The velocity field is then corrected on the C-grid and the changes must then be interpolated back to the A-grid. These technical details are relegated to Appendix A. However, it should be noted that the C-grid velocities resulting from this approach precisely satisfy the continuity equation and that the Coriolis terms do not suffer from the need for horizontal interpolations.