SEAM: Spectral Element Atmospheric Model
Research supported by the
DOE/CHAMMP program.
Spectral element methods
Spectral elements are a type of finite elements in which a high degree
spectral method is used within each element. This method combines the accuracy
of conventional spectral methods with the geometric flexibility of finite
element methods. It allows both modeling complicated domains, such as ocean
basins, and refining the mesh locally. This last feature is very promising:
It provides a natural way to incorporate regions of high resolution into
a global model of the Earth's atmosphere.
SEAM results for the Polar Vortex
Papers:
Taylor , Loft
and
Tribbia
Performance
of a spectral element atmospheric model (SEAM) on the HP Exemplar
SPP2000,
NCAR/TN-439+EDD (1998). (gziped postscript
file
and abstract
available)
Taylor , Tribbia
and
Iskandarani,
The
spectral element method for the shallow water equations on the sphere,
J.
Comput. Phys. 130 (1997) 92-108. (gziped
postscript file and abstract available)
Haidvogel, Curchitser,
Iskandarani,
Hughes
and Taylor, Global Modeling of the Ocean
and Atmosphere Using the Spectral Element Method, Atmosphere-Ocean
35
(1997)
505-531. (abstract)
Sample Grids (color coded by element area):
SEAM: Shallow water equation results
Plots of regional mesh refinement results:
SEAM: 3D primitive equations model
Plots of Held-Suarez Forcing results:
