Professional Documents
Culture Documents
4.1.2 Coordinate Transforms in The Horizontal
4.1.2 Coordinate Transforms in The Horizontal
4.1.2 Coordinate Transforms in The Horizontal
PHYSICAL MODEL
Implementation
Coordinate systems are selected in the model with the switch iopt grid sph:
0 : Cartesian
1 : spherical
∆d2 = ∆x2 + ∆y 2
" 2 2 # " 2 2 #
∂F1 ∂F2 2 ∂F1 ∂F2
= + ∆ξ1 + + ∆ξ22
∂ξ1 ∂ξ1 ∂ξ2 ∂ξ2
∂F1 ∂F1 ∂F2 ∂F2
+ 2 + ∆ξ1 ∆ξ2 (4.5)
∂ξ1 ∂ξ2 ∂ξ1 ∂ξ2
If
∂F1 ∂F1 ∂F2 ∂F2
+ =0 (4.6)
∂ξ1 ∂ξ2 ∂ξ1 ∂ξ2
then
∆d2 = h21 ∆ξ12 + h22 ∆ξ22 (4.7)
and (ξ1 , ξ2 ) are then called orthogonal curvilinear coordinates. This means
geometrically that the coordinate curve along which ξ1 is a constant, inter-
sects the curve along which ξ2 is constant orthogonally.
Note that spherical coordinates can be considered as “pseudo”-curvilinear
coordinates with respect to Cartesian coordinates with h1 = R cos φ and
h2 = R where R is the mean radius of the Earth, defined as the radius of a
sphere having the same volume as the Earth or 6371 km (see Appendix 2 of
Gill, 1982)