Performance of the cut-cell method of representing orography in idealized simulations

Abstract

Several tests of a model with a cut-cell representation of orography are presented: a resting atmosphere test, advection across a hill and a warm rising bubble over hills with different gradients. The tests are compared with results from terrain-following models. Results indicate that errors associated with terrain-following coordinates are reduced, in some cases greatly reduced, with the cut-cell approach. In a resting atmosphere, the cut-cell approach does not generate flow around an isolated hill however steep the terrain. Relative errors in a rising bubble test are an order of magnitude smaller than terrain-following simulations. © 2013 The Authors. Atmospheric Science Letters published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of the Royal Meteorological Society.