Unstructured meshes in large-scale ocean modeling

Abstract

The current status of large-scale ocean modeling on unstructured meshes is discussed in the context of climate applications. Our review is based on FEOM, which is at present the only general circulation model on a triangular mesh with a proven record of global applications. Different setups are considered including some promising alternative finite-element and finite-volume configurations. The focus is on consistency and performance issues which are much easier to achieve with finite-volume methods. On the other hand, they sometimes suffer from numerical modes and require more research before they can be generally recommended for modeling of the general circulation.