Two-dimensional atmospheric transport and chemistry model: Numerical experiments with a new advection algorithm

Extensive testing of the advective scheme, proposed by Prather (1986), has been carried out in support of the California Institute of Technology–Jet Propulsion Laboratory two-dimensional model of the middle atmosphere. We generalize the original scheme to include higher-order moments. In addition, we show how well the scheme works in the presence of chemistry as well as eddy diffusion. Six types of numerical experiments including simple clock motion and pure advection in two dimensions have been investigated in detail. By comparison with analytic solutions it is shown that the new algorithm can faithfully preserve concentration profiles, has essentially no numerical diffusion, and is superior to a typical fourth-order finite difference scheme.