MPDATA - A FINITE-DIFFERENCE SOLVER FOR GEOPHYSICAL FLOWS

This article is a review of MPDATA, a class of methods for the numeric al simulation of fluid flows based on the sign-preserving properties o f upstream differencing. MPDATA was designed originally as an inexpens ive alternative to flux-limited schemes for evaluating the advection o f nonnegative thermodynamic variables (such as liquid water or water v apour) in atmospheric models. During the last decade, MPDATA has evolv ed from a simple advection scheme to a general approach for integratin g the conservation laws of geophysical fluids on micro-to-planetary sc ales. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the basic concepts lea ding to a family of MPDATA schemes, to review existing MPDATA options, and to demonstrate the use of MPDATA to effectively construct two dis tinct types of models (elastic and anelastic) for complex geophysical flows. (C) 1998 Academic Press.