Variational Data Assimilation in Problems of Modeling Hydrophysical Fields in Open Water Areas

The formulation of boundary conditions at liquid (open) boundaries is a topical problem in mathematically modeling the hydrothermodynamics of open water areas. Variational data assimilation is one method allowing one to take into account liquid boundaries in models. According to the approach considered in this paper, observational data at a certain time are given and the problem is treated as an inverse one with open boundary flows as additional unknowns. This paper presents a formulation of the general problem of the variational assimilation of observational data for a model of the hydrothermodynamics of open water areas based on the splitting method. Algorithms for the variational assimilation of temperature and sea-level data at the liquid boundary are formulated and the results of numerical experiments on the use of the algorithms in the Baltic Sea circulation model are presented.