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Recently, a standard test case suite for 2-D linear transport on the sphere was proposed to assess important aspects of accuracy in geophysical fluid dynamics with a "minimal" set of idealized model configurations/runs/diagnostics. Here we present results from 19 state-of-the-art transport scheme formulations based on finite-difference/finite-volume methods as well as emerging (in the context of atmospheric/oceanographic sciences) Galerkin methods. Discretization grids range from traditional regular latitude–longitude grids to more isotropic domain discretizations such as icosahedral and cubed-sphere tessellations of the sphere. The schemes are evaluated using a wide range of diagnostics in idealized flow environments. Accuracy is assessed in single- and two-tracer configurations using conventional error norms as well as novel diagnostics designed for climate and climate–chemistry applications. In addition, algorithmic considerations that may be important for computational efficiency are reported on. The latter is inevitably computing platform dependent. The ensemble of results from a wide variety of schemes presented here helps shed light on the ability of the test case suite diagnostics and flow settings to discriminate between algorithms and provide insights into accuracy in the context of global atmospheric/ocean modeling. A library of benchmark results is provided to facilitate scheme intercomparison and model development. Simple software and data sets are made available to facilitate the process of model evaluation and scheme intercomparison.

The semi-Lagrangian Absolute Vorticity (SL-AV) atmospheric model is the global semi-Lagrangian hydrostatic model used for operational medium-range and seasonal forecasts at Hydrometeorological centre of Russia. The distinct feature of SL-AV dynamical core is the semi-implicit semi-Lagrangian vorticity-divergence formulation on the unstaggered grid. Semi-implicit semi-Lagrangian approach allows for long time steps while violates the global and local mass-conservation. In particular, the total mass in simulations with semi-Lagrangian models can drift significantly if no aposteriori mass-fixing algorithms are applied. However, the global mass-fixing algorithms degrade the local mass conservation. The inherently mass-conservative version of SL-AV model dynamical core presented in the article ensures global and local mass conservation without mass-fixing algorithms. The mass conservation is achieved with the introduction of the finite-volume semi-Lagrangian discretization for continuity equation based on the 3-D extension of the conservative cascade semi-Lagrangian transport scheme (CCS). The numerical experiments show that the presented new version of SL-AV dynamical core combines the accuracy and stability of the standard SL-AV dynamical core with the massconservation properties. The results of the mountain induced Rossby wave test and baroclinic instability test for mass-conservative dynamical core are found to be in agreement with the results available in literature. 2Hydrometeorological centre of Russia, 11-13, Bol. Predtechenskiy lane, 123242 Moscow, Russia [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, a standard test case suite for 2-D linear transport on the sphere was proposed to assess important aspects of accuracy in geophysical fluid dynamics with a "minimal" set of idealized model configurations/runs/diagnostics. Here we present results from 19 state-of-the-art transport scheme formulations based on finite-difference/finite-volume methods as well as emerging (in the context of atmospheric/ oceanographic sciences) Galerkin methods. Discretization grids range from traditional regular latitude-longitude grids to more isotropic domain discretizations such as icosahedral and cubed-sphere tessellations of the sphere. The schemes are eval10 uated using a wide range of diagnostics in idealized flow environments. Accuracy is assessed in single- and two-tracer configurations using conventional error norms as well as novel diagnostics designed for climate and climate-chemistry applications. In addition, algorithmic considerations that may be important for computational efficiency are reported on. The latter is inevitably computing platform dependent, The ensemble of results from a wide variety of schemes presented here helps shed light on the ability of the test case suite diagnostics and flow settings to discriminate between algorithms and provide insights into accuracy in the context of global atmospheric/ ocean modeling. A library of benchmark results is provided to facilitate scheme intercomparison and model development. Simple software and data-sets are made available to facilitate the process of model evaluation and scheme intercomparison. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]