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A fourth-order finite difference method is proposed and studied for the primitive equations (PEs) of large-scale atmospheric and oceanic flow based on mean vorticity formulation. Since the vertical average of the horizontal velocity field is divergence-free, we can introduce mean vorticity and mean stream function which are connected by a 2-D Poisson equation. As a result, the PEs can be reformulated such that the prognostic equation for the horizontal velocity is replaced by evolutionary equa-tions for the mean vorticity field and the vertical derivative of the horizontal velocity. The mean vorticity equation is approximated by a compact difference scheme due to the difficulty of the mean vorticity boundary condition, while fourth-order long-stencil approximations are utilized to deal with transport type equations for computational convenience. The numerical values for the total velocity field (both horizontal and vertical) are statically determined by a discrete realization of a differential equation at each fixed horizontal point. The method is highly efficient and is capable of produc-ing highly resolved solutions at a reasonable computational cost. The full fourth-order accuracy is checked by an example of the reformulated PEs with force terms. Addi-tionally, numerical results of a large-scale oceanic circulation are presented.

Poisson equation on point cloud with Dirichlet boundary condition plays important role in many problems. In this paper, we use the volume constraint proposed by Du et.al to handle the Dirichlet boundary condition in the point integral method for Poisson equation on point cloud. We prove that the solution given by volume constraint converges to the true solution as the point cloud converges to the underlying smooth manifold.

A fourth order finite difference method is presented for the 2D unsteady viscous incompressible Boussinesq equations in vorticity-stream function formulation. The method is especially suitable for moderate to large Reynolds number flows. The momentum equation is discretized by a compact fourth order scheme with the no-slip boundary condition enforced using a local vorticity boundary condition. Fourth order long-stencil discretizations are used for the temperature transport equation with one-sided extrapolation applied near the boundary. The time stepping scheme for both equations is classical fourth order Runge–Kutta. The method is highly efficient. The main computation consists of the solution of two Poisson-like equations at each Runge–Kutta time stage for which standard FFT based fast Poisson solvers are used. An example of Lorenz flow is presented, in which the full fourth order accuracy is checked. The numerical simulation of a strong shear flow induced by a temperature jump, is resolved by two perfectly matching resolutions. Additionally, we present benchmark quality simulations of a differentially-heated cavity problem. This flow was the focus of a special session at the first MIT conference on Computational Fluid and Solid Mechanics in June 2001.

In this paper, we develop and analyze an arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian discontinuous Galerkin (ALE-DG) method with a time-dependent approximation space for one dimensional conservation laws, which satisfies the geometric conservation law. For the semi-discrete ALE-DG method, when applied to nonlinear scalar conservation laws, a cell entropy inequality, L2 stability and error estimates are proven. More precisely, we prove the sub-optimal (k+1/2) convergence for monotone fluxes, and optimal (k+1) convergence for an upwind flux, when a piecewise P^k polynomial approximation space is used. For the fully-discrete ALE-DG method, the geometric conservation law and the local maximum principle are proven. Moreover, we state conditions for slope limiters, which ensure total variation stability of the method. Numerical examples show the capability of the method.