APPLICATION OF THE FINITE ELEMENT METHOD TO THE CALCULATION OF THE KUROSHIO CURRENT IN THE EASTERN AREA OF TAIWAN

In recent years,applications of finite element methods to some problems in physical oceanography have been reported.The present paper is devoted to application of finite element methods to the calculation of three-dimentional ocean current.We establish the equations of finite element approximation for three-dimensional ocean current.We start with the basic principle of fluid mechanics(the principle of virtual power)and incompres sibility of the seawater.Considering gravitational forces,coriolis forces,the forces due to gradients of pressure and lateral and vertical friction and neglecting forces due to accelerations,we can write equation(2.2).It may always be assumed in the theory of ocean currents that 1)as i=3,the vertical balance of forces are the vertical pressure gradient and gravitational force and 2) the vertical velocity component(U₃^m) may always be neglected except for(2.14).Then the global system of equations(Matrix forms) are given as(2.30)-(2.32).The finite element interpolation error is given as(3.14).The discussion of results and problems,see part 4.