A General Filter for Stretched-Grid Models: Application in Two-Dimension Polar Geometry

Abstract

Abstract Variable-resolution grids are used in global atmospheric models to improve the representation of regional scales over an area of interest: they have reduced computational cost compared to uniform high-resolution grids, and avoid the nesting issues of limited-area models. To address some concerns associated with the stretching and anisotropy of the variable-resolution computational grid, a general convolution filter operator was developed. The convolution filter that was initially applied in Cartesian geometry in a companion paper is here adapted to cylindrical polar coordinates as an intermediate step toward spherical polar latitude–longitude grids. Both polar grids face the so-called “pole problem” because of the convergence of meridians at the poles. In this work the authors will present some details related to the adaptation of the filter to cylindrical polar coordinates for both uniform as well as stretched grids. The results show that the developed operator is skillful in removing the extraneous fine scales around the pole, with a computational cost smaller than that of common polar filters. The results on a stretched grid for vector and scalar test functions are satisfactory and the filter’s response can be optimized for different types of test function and noise one wishes to remove.