A Mesh Adaptive and Mass Conservative Three Dimensional Numerical Model For Ocean Hydrodynamics and Transport Simulations

Next generation finite element method (FEM)hydrodynamic and transport code are expected to be at the fore front of Ocean modeling, of particular importance are the FEM codes that conserve hydrodynamic and transport mass (locally and globally). This talk will introduce the new U.S. Army Corps of Engineers enterprise implicit time stepping and multi-dimensional FEM model, this model is characterized by adaptive meshing to resolve the fine detail required to capture baroclinic effects on hydrodynamics as well as on transported quantities such as salt/heat/tracers etc. The FEM developmental theory that guarantees local and global mass conservation, and results from simulations will be presented, also presented will be the aspects of the Eulerian-Lagrangian meshing that removes certain limitations of sigma and z-gridding in hydrodynamic models.