Suggested Citation:
Fringer, Oliver. 2013. Galveston Bay: Stanford Unstructured Nonhydrostatic Terrain-following Adaptive Navier-Stokes (SUNTANS) Model 2007-2011 Simulation. Distributed by: GRIIDC, Harte Research Institute, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi. doi:10.7266/N70C4SVF
Data Parameters and Units:
suntans_mesh : Topology data of 2D unstructured mesh cells : Maps every face to its corner nodes face : Maps every face to its edges : Maps every edge to the two nodes it connects neigh : Maps every face to its neighbouring faces grad : Maps every edge to the two faces it connects empty : Maps face indices between partitioned and unpartitioned grid eptr : Maps edge indices between partitioned and unpartitioned grid xv : Easting of 2D mesh face yv : Northing of 2D mesh face xp : Easting of 2D mesh node yp : Northing of 2D mesh node xe : Easting of 2D mesh edge ye : Northing of 2D mesh edge normal : Dot product of unique normal with outward normal of each edge n1 : x-component of the edge normal n2 : y-component of the edge normal df : edge length, [m] dg : distance between faces on either side of edge, [m] def : Distance between faces and edges, [m] Ac : Horizontal area of 2D mesh, [m^2] dz : z layer spacing, [m] z_r : ocean_z_coordinate, [m] Nk : Number of layers at face Nke : Number of layers at edge dv : sea_floor_depth_below_geoid, [m] dzz : z layer spacing at faces, [m] dzf : z layer spacing at edges, [m] time : second since 1990-01-01 00:00:00 eta : Sea surface elevation, [m] uc : Eastward water velocity component, [m s^-1] vc : Northward water velocity component, [m s^-1] w : Vertical water velocity component, [m s^-1] nu_v : Vertical eddy viscosity, [m^2 s^-1] salt : Salinity, [ppt] temp : Water temperature, [deg-C] rho : Water density, [kg m^-3] U : Edge normal velocity, [m s^-1] Uwind : Eastward wind velocity component, [m s^-1] Vwind : Northward wind velocity component, [m s^-1] Tair : Air temperature, [deg-C] Pair : Air pressure, [mb] rain : Rain fall rate, [kg m^2 s^-1] RH : Relative humidity, [%] cloud : Cloud cover fraction, [ ] Hs : Sensible heat flux, [W m^-2] Hl : Latent heat flux, [W m^-2] Hlw : Net longwave radiation flux, [W m^-2] Hsw : Net shortwave radiation flux, [W m^-2] tau_x : Eastward component surface wind stress, [N m^-2] tau_y : Northward component surface wind stress, [N m-2] EP : Evaporation minus precipitation, [m s^-1]
Methods:
SUNTANS is a nonhydrostatic, unstructured-grid, parallel, coastal ocean simulation tool that solves the Navier-Stokes equations under the Boussinesq approximation. The formulation is based on the method outlined by Casulli in his 1999 papers, where the free-surface and vertical diffusion are discretized with the theta-method, which eliminates the Courant condition associated with fast free-surface waves and the friction term associated with small vertical grid spacings at the free-surface and bottom boundaries. The grid employs z-levels in the vertical and triangular cells in the platform. When wetting and drying is absent, advection of momentum is accomplished with the second-order accurate unstructured-grid scheme of Perot (2000). In the presence of wetting and drying, the semi-Lagrangian formulation is employed. Scalar advection is accomplished semi-implicitly using the method of Gross (1999), in which continuity of volume and mass are guaranteed when wetting and drying is employed. The wetting and drying capabilities of SUNTANS enable its use for coastal as well as estuarine domains. The theta-method for the free-surface yields a two-dimensional Poisson equation, and the nonhydrostatic pressure is governed by a three-dimensional Poisson equation. These are both solved with the preconditioned conjugate gradient algorithm with diagonal preconditioning. SUNTANS is written in the C programming language, and the message-passing interface (MPI) is employed for use in a distributed memory parallel computing environment. Load balancing and grid-partitioning are being managed with the ParMETIS package.
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