Numerical simulation of atmospheric flow over complex terrain

In order to develop an overall efficient and accurate method of simulating an unsteady three-dimensional atmospheric flow over topography, we examined two grid systems and corresponding variable arrangements: one is a body-fitted coordinate (BFC) grid system based on a collocated variable arrangement; the other is an orthogonal grid system based on a staggered variable arrangement. Using these codes, we calculated the wind system over topography such as an isolated hill and real complex terrain. Both codes remarkably removed the numerical difficulties such as the convergence of the SOR method in solving the pressure Poisson equation, resulting in numerical results with much higher accuracy. Despite the differences in the grid system and in variable arrangement, no significant differences in the flow pattern between the both numerical results were found. Compared with the previous studies, the numerical results obtained are very satisfactory in the sense that overall characteristic flows are successfully simulated irrespective of the simulation codes. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.