A Second-Order Semi-Implicit Projection Time-Stepping Scheme for the Shallow-Water Equations on the Sphere Using Compatible Finite Elements

Abstract

We propose a second-order, semi-implicit time-stepping scheme for the shallow-water equations on the sphere discretised with compatible finite elements. The scheme splits the advection operator from the wave operator, applying a DG-upwind SSPRK3 method to the advection part and an $H(\text{div})$-conforming implicit discretisation to the wave part, solved efficiently via hybridisation. The scheme follows a three-step symmetric splitting: an explicit half-step, a full advection step, and an implicit half-step that simultaneously projects the velocity back into the $H(\text{div})$ space. This symmetry guarantees global second-order accuracy and confines the stability restriction to the CFL condition of the advection step alone. The time-step can therefore be extended beyond this limit by subcycling the advection step without additional implicit solves. The method is implemented in Firedrake and validated against a standard suite of spherical shallow-water benchmarks, demonstrating stable results for Courant numbers up to 1 (with two advection subcycles) with second-order finite elements, second-order convergence, and good parallel scaling.