Minimal atmospheric finite-mode models preserving symmetry and generalized Hamiltonian structures (Q633724)

Various models of the atmospheric sciences are based on nonlinear partial differential equations. Besides numerical simulations of such models, it has been tried over the past fifty years to capture at least some of their characteristic features by deriving reduced and much simplified systems of equations. A common way for deriving such reduced models is based on the Galerkin approach: One expands the dynamic variables of a model in a truncated Fourier (or some other) series, substitutes this expansion into the governing equations and studies the dynamics of the corresponding system of ordinary differential equations for the expansion coefficients. Although the number of expansion coefficients is usually minimal to allow for an analytic investigation, these reduced models have been used in order to explain some common properties of atmospheric models. The typical problem with the conventional Galerkin approach for the construction of finite-mode models is to keep structural properties unaffected in the process of discretization. The authors present two examples of finite-mode approximations that in some respect preserve the geometric attributes inherited from their continuous models: a three-component model of the barotropic vorticity equation known as Lorentz' maximum simplification equations [\textit{E. N. Lorentz}, ``Maximum simplification of the dynamic equation'', Tellus 12 (3), 243--254 (1960)] and a six-component model of the two-dimensional Rayleigh-Bénard convection problem. It is proved that the Lorentz-1960 model respects both the maximum set of admitted point symmetries and an extension of the noncanonical Hamiltonian form (Nambu form). However the Lorentz-1963 model is neither compatible with the corresponding Nambu (Hamilton) form of the Saltzan convection equations nor with its point symmetries and hence cannot be considered as the maximum simplification of the Rayleigh-Bénard convection problem. Nevertheless at the usage of six-component truncation the authors show that it is again possible to retain both symmetries and the Nambu representation in the course of discretization. The conservative part of this six-component reduction is related to the Lagrange top equations. Dissipation is incorporated using a metric tensor.