The central-upwind finite-volume method for atmospheric numerical modeling

A semi-discretized central-upwind finite-volume (CFV) scheme has been developed for atmospheric modeling applications. The non-oscillatory property of the scheme is achieved by employing high-order weighted essentially non-oscillatory (WENO) reconstruction method, and time integration relies on explicit Runge-Kutta method. The WENO reconstruction is fifth-order accurate and implemented in a dimension-split manner, and a fully 2D fourth-order reconstruction is also considered for comparison. The CFV scheme is computationally efficient and employs a compact non-staggered computational stencil with an optional positivity-preserving filter. The scheme has been validated for benchmark advection tests on the cubed-sphere. A global shallow-water model and a 2D non-hydrostatic Euler solver are also developed based on the same central finite-volume scheme.