A stabilized proper orthogonal decomposition reduced-order model for large scale quasigeostrophic ocean circulation

In this paper, a stabilized proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) reduced-order model (ROM) is presented for the barotropic vorticity equation. We apply the POD-ROM model to mid-latitude simplified oceanic basins, which are standard prototypes of more realistic large-scale ocean dynamics. A mode dependent eddy viscosity closure scheme is used to model the effects of the discarded POD modes. A sensitivity analysis with respect to the free eddy viscosity stabilization parameter is performed for various POD-ROMs with different numbers of POD modes. The POD-ROM results are validated against the Munk layer resolving direct numerical simulations using a fully conservative fourth-order Arakawa scheme. A comparison with the standard Galerkin POD-ROM without any stabilization is also included in our investigation. Significant improvements in the accuracy over the standard Galerkin model are shown for a four-gyre ocean circulation problem. This first step in the numerical assessment of the POD-ROM shows that it could represent a computationally efficient tool for large scale oceanic simulations over long time intervals.