A Fast Dynamic Grid Adaption Scheme for Meteorological Flows

Abstract

The continuous dynamic grid adaption (CDGA) technique is applied to a compressible, three-dimensional model of a rising thermal. The computational cost, per grid point per time step, of using CDGA instead of a fixed, uniform Cartesian grid is about 53% of the total cost of the model with CDGA. The use of general curvilinear coordinates contributes 11.7% to this total, calculating and moving the grid 6.1%, and continually updating the transformation relations 20.7%. Costs due to calculations that involve the gridpoint velocities (as well as some substantial unexplained costs) contribute the remaining 14.5%. A simple way to limit the cost of calculating the grid is presented. The grid is adapted by solving an elliptic equation for gridpoint coordinates on a coarse grid and then interpolating the full finite-difference grid. In our application, the additional costs per grid point of CDGA are shown to be easily offset by the savings resulting from the reduction in the required number of grid points. In the simulation of the thermal, we are able to reduce costs by a factor of 3, as compared with those of a companion model with a fixed, uniform Cartesian grid.