A New Solver for Non-Hydrostatic Atmospheric Dynamics

A new finite volume solver is proposed for non-hydrostatic (NH) atmospheric simulation. The proposed solver is fully discrete, upwind, and high-order accurate in time and space, utilizing a characteristic decomposition of the fluxes. Temporal and spatial accuracy are coupled, and both depend on the spatial reconstruction. Spatial reconstructions include the Weighted Essentially Non-Oscillatory (WENO) method and the Piecewise Parabolic Method (PPM). Multidimensionality is achieved via a second-order accurate Strang splitting. Common benchmark NH test cases are used to evaluate the solver (e.g. rising thermal, density current, and inertia-gravity waves). The proposed scheme offers promise in terms of low numerical diffusion and enhanced scalability.