An adaptive discontinuous Galerkin method for the simulation of hurricane storm surge

Abstract

Numerical simulations based on solving the 2D shallow water equations using a discontinuous Galerkin (DG) discretisation have evolved to be a viable tool for many geophysical applications. In the context of flood modelling, however, they have not yet been methodologically studied to a large extent. Systematic model testing is non-trivial as no comprehensive collection of numerical test cases exists to ensure the correctness of the implementation. Hence, the first part of this manuscript aims at collecting test cases from the literature that are generally useful for storm surge modellers and can be used to benchmark codes. On geographic scale, hurricane storm surge can be interpreted as a localised phenomenon making it ideally suited for adaptive mesh refinement (AMR). Past studies employing dynamic AMR have exclusively focused on nested meshes. For that reason, we have developed a DG storm surge model on a triangular and dynamically adaptive mesh. In order to increase computational efficiency, the refinement is driven by physics-based refinement indicators capturing major model sensitivities. Using idealised numerical test cases, we demonstrate the model’s ability to correctly represent all source terms and reproduce known variability of coastal flooding with respect to hurricane characteristics such as size and approach speed. Finally, the adaptive mesh significantly reduces computing time with no effect on storm waves measured at discrete wave gauges just off the coast which shows the model’s potential for use as a robust simulation tool for real-time predictions.