GEA: a new finite volume-based open source code for the numerical simulation of atmospheric and ocean flows

Abstract

We introduce GEA (Geophysical and Environmental Applications), a new open-source atmosphere and ocean modeling framework within the finite volume C++ library OpenFOAM. Here, we present the development of a non-hydrostatic atmospheric model consisting of a pressure-based solver for the Euler equations written in conservative form using density, momentum, and total energy as variables. We validate the solver for two idealized test cases involving buoyancy driven flows: smooth and non-smooth rising thermal bubble. Through qualitative and quantitative comparisons against numerical data available in the literature, we show that our approach is accurate.