Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/C51829X/1
Adaptive numerical methods for 'next-generation' ocean modelling
Fellowship Award
- Fellow:
- Professor MD Piggott, Imperial College London, Earth Science and Engineering
- Grant held at:
- Imperial College London, Earth Science and Engineering
- Science Area:
- Marine
- Freshwater
- Atmospheric
- Overall Classification:
- Marine
- ENRIs:
- Pollution and Waste
- Natural Resource Management
- Global Change
- Environmental Risks and Hazards
- Science Topics:
- Ocean Circulation
- Ocean - Atmosphere Interact.
- Climate & Climate Change
- Abstract:
- The accurate and efficient modelling of the World's oceans is an incredibly important research and development area with many users in the academic, governmental and commercial sectors. However, despite significant advances over the past decade, the vast majority of ocean models are still based on essentially the same finite difference numerical techniques employed in the earliest models developed in the 1960s. Meanwhile, new advanced numerical techniques have been employed with huge success in smaller-scale engineering applications. These techniques offer several profound and widely acknowledged advantages over the standard approach to ocean modelling. These include: the ability to conform extremely accurately and efficiently to complex domain geometries (as described by intricate coastlines and bathymetry); the freedom to apply various physically realistic boundary conditions in a straightforward manner; the ability to dynamically focus resolution, and hence limited computational resources, where it is most required in response to evolving flow structures (often of initially unknown locations, for example developing fronts and eddies) or regions of socio-economic importance; the ability to move the mesh to follow interesting and important solution structures; and finally to do all of this in response to the specific modelling needs of the user, while allowing quantitative statements regarding errors and accuracy to be made. Mesh adaptivity is the real key enabling technology that is required to fully realise these advantages, and also to allow models based on the new technological framework to compete in terms of efficiency with simpler current models. The really exciting point is not that these advances will allow cheaper (or more realistic) simulations - which of course they will - but rather that the resulting models will be able to address questions and problems that are completely out of the realms of possibility for current models. Primarily these application areas will be those for which the accurate modelling of a wide range of scales and their interaction are crucial to obtain useful modelling results, from the global climate down to coastal/estuarine scales, as well as small scale physical processes. This proposal describes a course of research that will result in the development of powerful new adaptive algorithms designed specifically for ocean modelling. The unique and challenging features of ocean flow will be taken into account to optimise the resulting methods. These will be applied to a range of coupled multi-scale benchmarks and realistic applications which will be of interest to the ocean modelling and related communities at large. It will also be an important contribution to the rapidly expanding field of 'next-generation' ocean modelling. It will help cement the position of the UK (through NERC) at the forefront of research into cutting-edge adaptive modelling capabilities, and the development and application of state-of-the-art ocean modelling technology.
- NERC Reference:
- NE/C51829X/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- Postdoctoral Fellow
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Postdoctoral Fellowship
This fellowship award has a total value of £149,350
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| Total - Staff | Total - Other Costs |
|---|---|
| £120,849 | £28,500 |
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