Theoretical analysis and numerical approximation for the stochastic thermal quasi-geostrophic model

Abstract

This paper investigates the mathematical properties of a stochastic version of the balanced 2D thermal quasigeostrophic (TQG) model of potential vorticity dynamics. This stochastic TQG model is intended as a basis for parametrization of the dynamical creation of unresolved degrees of freedom in computational simulations of upper ocean dynamics when horizontal buoyancy gradients and bathymetry affect the dynamics, particularly at the submesoscale (250 m–10 km). Specifically, we have chosen the Stochastic Advection by Lie Transport (SALT) algorithm introduced in [D. D. Holm, Variational principles for stochastic fluid dynamics, Proc. Roy. Soc. A: Math. Phys. Eng. Sci. 471 (2015) 20140963, http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspa.2014.0963 ] and applied in [C. Cotter, D. Crisan, D. Holm, W. Pan and I. Shevchenko, Modelling uncertainty using stochastic transport noise in a 2-layer quasi-geostrophic model, Found. Data Sci. 2 (2020) 173, https://doi.org/10.3934/fods.2020010 ; Numerically modeling stochastic lie transport in fluid dynamics, SIAM Multiscale Model. Simul. 17 (2019) 192–232, https://doi.org/10.1137/18M1167929 ] as our modeling approach. The SALT approach preserves the Kelvin circulation theorem and an infinite family of integral conservation laws for TQG. The goal of the SALT algorithm is to quantify the uncertainty in the process of up-scaling, or coarse-graining of either observed or synthetic data at fine scales, for use in computational simulations at coarser scales. The present work provides a rigorous mathematical analysis of the solution properties of the thermal quasigeostrophic (TQG) equations with SALT [D. D. Holm and E. Luesink, Stochastic wave-current interaction in thermal shallow water dynamics, J. Nonlinear Sci. 31 (2021), https://doi.org/10.1007/s00332-021-09682-9 ; D. D. Holm, E. Luesink and W. Pan, Stochastic mesoscale circulation dynamics in the thermal ocean, Phys. Fluids 33 (2021) 046603, https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0040026 ].