80 CHAPTER 4.

PHYSICAL MODEL

Implementation
The type of horizontal grid is selected with the switch iopt grid htype:

1: uniform rectangular
2: non-uniform rectangular
3: fully curvilinear

4.1.3 Rotated grids

To avoid that the coordinate lines of a spherical rectangular grid are re-
strained to latitude and longitude circles, COHERENS allows to apply a grid
rotation. This is affected by deplacing the North pole for the geographic coor-
dinates to a new position. In this way the grid can be made more aligned
with coastal or more efficient open boundaries. An example of a rotated grid
is shown in Figure 4.4
If (λp , φp ) are the longitude and latitude of the displaced North Pole, the
transformation formulae to the new coordinates (λ0 , φ0 ) become
h i
φ0 = arcsin sin φp sin φ + cos φp cos φ cos(λ − λp ) (4.10)
h cos φ sin φ − sin φ cos φ cos(λ − λ ) i
0

p p p
λ = S sin(λp − λ) arccos 0
cos φ
(4.11)

where S(x) is the Sign function1 . The backward transformation formulae are
h i
φ = arcsin sin φp sin φ0 + cos φp cos φ0 cos λ0 (4.12)
h sin φ cos φ0 cos λ0 − cos φ sin φ0 i
p p
λ = S(sin λ0 ) arccos + λp − S(λp )π
cos φ
(4.13)

The coordinates of the grid nodes in the new coordinate grid are deter-
mined by (4.9) with (λ, φ, ∆λ, ∆φ) replaced by (λ0 , φ0 , ∆λ0 , ∆φ0 ). The loca-
tion of the new North pole is obtained by defining two additional parameters

• The first is the grid rotation angle α defined as the angle between the
geographical and new equator. It is easily seen that α = 900 − φp . Note
that 0 < α < 1800 .
1
S(x) equals 1 if x ≥ 0, and 0 otherwise.