An MCV nonhydrostatic atmospheric model with height-based terrain following coordinate: Tests of waves over steep mountains

Abstract

A nonhydrostatic atmospheric model was tested with the mountain waves over various bell-shaped mountains. The model is recently proposed by using the MCV (multimoment constrained finite volume) schemes with the height-based terrain following coordinate representing the topography. As discussed in our previous work, the model has some appealing features for atmospheric modeling and can be expected as a practical framework of the dynamic cores, which well balances the numerical accuracy and algorithmic complexity. The flows over the mountains of various half widths and heights were simulated with the model. The semianalytic solutions to the mountain waves through the linear theory are used to check the performance of the MCV model. It is revealed that the present model can accurately reproduce various mountain waves including those generated by the mountains with very steep inclination and is very promising for numerically simulating atmospheric flows over complex terrains.