A semi-implicit multiscale scheme for shallow water flows at low Froude number

Abstract

A new large time step semi-implicit multiscale method is presented for the solution of low Froude-number shallow water flows. While on small scales which are under-resolved in time the impact of source terms on the divergence of the flow is essentially balanced, on large resolved scales the scheme propagates free gravity waves with minimized diffusion. The scheme features a scale decomposition based on multigrid ideas. Two different time integrators are blended at each scale depending on the scale-dependent Courant number for gravity wave propagation. The finite-volume discretization is based on a Cartesian grid and is second order accurate. The basic properties of the method are validated by numerical tests. This development is a further step in the development of asymptotically adaptive numerical methods for the computation of large scale atmospheric flows.