We develop numerical methods for solving partial differential equations (PDE) defined on an evolving interface represented by the grid based particle method (GBPM) recently proposed in [S. Leung, H.K. Zhao, A grid based particle method for moving interface problems, J. Comput. Phys. 228 (2009) 77067728]. In particular, we develop implicit time discretization methods for the advectiondiffusion equation where the time step is restricted solely by the advection part of the equation. We also generalize the GBPM to solve high order geometrical flows including surface diffusion and Willmore-type flows. The resulting algorithm can be easily implemented since the method is based on meshless particles quasi-uniformly sampled on the interface. Furthermore, without any computational mesh or triangulation defined on the interface, we do not require remeshing or reparametrization in the case of highly distorted motion

Thetransmissioneigenvalueproblem,besidesitscriticalroleininversescattering problems, deserves special interest of its own due to the fact that the corresponding differen- tial operator is neither elliptic nor self-adjoint. In this paper, we provide a spectral analysis and propose a novel iterative algorithm for the computation of a few positive real eigen- values and the corresponding eigenfunctions of the transmission eigenvalue problem. Based on approximation using continuous finite elements, we first derive an associated symmetric quadratic eigenvalue problem (QEP) for the transmission eigenvalue problem to eliminate the nonphysical zero eigenvalues while preserve all nonzero ones. In addition, the derived QEP enables us to consider more refined discretization to overcome the limitation on the number of degrees of freedom. We then transform the QEP to a parameterized symmet- ric definite generalized eigenvalue problem (GEP) and develop a secant-type iteration for solving the resulting GEPs. Moreover, we carry out spectral analysis for various existence intervals of desired positive real eigenvalues, since a few lowest positive real transmission eigenvalues are of practical interest in the estimation and the reconstruction of the index of refraction. Numerical experiments show that the proposed method can find those desired smallest positive real transmission eigenvalues accurately, efficiently, and robustly.

We study a fourth order finite difference method for the unsteady incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in vorticity formulation. The scheme is essentially compact and can be implemented very efficiently. Either Briley’s formula, or a new higher order formula, which will be derived in this paper, can be chosen as the vorticity boundary condition. By formal Taylor expansion, the new formula for the vorticity on the boundary gives 4th order accuracy; while Briley’s formula provides only 3rd order accuracy. However, the use of either formula results in a stable method and achieves full 4th order accuracy. The convergence analysis of the scheme with our new formula will be given in this paper, while that with Briley’s formula has been established in earlier literature. The consistency analysis is easier than that of Briley’s formula, no Strang type analysis is needed. In the stability analysis part, we adopt the technique of controlling some local terms by the diffusion term via discrete elliptic regularity. Physical no-slip boundary conditions are used throughout.

Atmospheric temperature is one of the most important climate variables. This observational study presents detailed descriptions of the temperature variability imprinted in the 9-year brightness temperature data acquired by the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit- Instrument A (AMSU-A) aboard Aqua since September 2002 over tropical oceans. A non-linear, adaptive method called the Ensemble Joint Multiple Extraction has been employed to extract the principal modes of variability in the AMSU-A/Aqua data. The semi-annual, annual, quasibiennial oscillation (QBO) modes and QBO–annual beat in the troposphere and the stratosphere have been successfully recovered. The modulation by the El Nin˜o/Southern oscillation (ENSO) in the troposphere was found and correlates well with the Multivariate ENSO Index. The longterm variations during 2002–2011 reveal a cooling trend (-0.5 K/decade at 10 hPa) in the tropical stratosphere; the trend below the tropical tropopause is not statistically significant due to the length of our data. A new tropospheric near-annual mode (period *1.6 years) was also revealed in the troposphere, whose existence was confirmed using National Centers for Environmental Prediction Reanalysis air temperature data. The near-annual mode in the troposphere is found to prevail in the eastern Pacific region and is coherent with a near-annual mode in the observed sea surface temperature over the Warm Pool region that has previously been reported. It remains a challenge for climate models to simulate the trends and principal modes of natural variability reported in this work.

Partial differential equations (PDE) on manifolds arise in many areas, including mathematics and many applied fields. Due to the complicated geometrical structure of the manifold, it is difficult to get efficient numerical method to solve PDE on manifold. In the paper, we propose a method called point integral method (PIM) to solve the Poisson-type equations from point clouds. Among different kinds of PDEs, the Poisson-type equations including the standard Poisson equation and the related eigenproblem of the Laplace-Beltrami operator are one of the most important. In PIM, the key idea is to derive the integral equations which approximates the Poisson-type equations and contains no derivatives but only the values of the unknown function. This feature makes the integral equation easy to be discretized from point cloud. In the paper, we explain the derivation of the integral equations, describe the point integral method and its implementation, and present the numerical experiments to demonstrate the convergence of PIM.