In this paper, we consider the Cauchy problem to the tropical climate model derived by Frierson-Majda-Pauluis in [15], which is a coupled system of the barotropic and baroclinic modes of the velocity and the typical midtropospheric temperature. The system considered in this paper has viscosities in the momentum equations, but no diffusivity in the temperature equation. We establish here the global well-posedness of strong solutions to this model. In proving the global existence of strong solutions, to overcome the difficulty caused by the absence of the diffusivity in the temperature equation, we introduce a new velocity w (called the pseudo baroclinic velocity), which has more regularities than the original baroclinic mode of the velocity. An auxiliary function φ, which looks like the effective viscous flux for the compressible Navier-Stokes equations, is also introduced to obtain the L∞ bound of the temperature. Regarding the uniqueness, we use the idea of performing suitable energy estimates at level one order lower than the natural basic energy estimates for the system.

This paper is devoted to reviewing several recent developments concerning certain class of geophysical models, including the primitive equations (PEs) of atmospheric and oceanic dynamics and a tropical atmosphere model. The PEs for large-scale oceanic and atmospheric dynamics are derived from the Navier-Stokes equations coupled to the heat convection by adopting the Boussinesq and hydrostatic approximations, while the tropical atmosphere model considered here is a nonlinear interaction system between the barotropic mode and the first baroclinic mode of the tropical atmosphere with moisture. We are mainly concerned with the global well-posedness of strong solutions to these systems, with full or partial viscosity, as well as certain singular perturbation small parameter limits related to these systems, including the small aspect ratio limit from the Navier-Stokes equations to the PEs, and a small relaxation-parameter in the tropical atmosphere model. These limits provide a rigorous justification to the hydrostatic balance in the PEs, and to the relaxation limit of the tropical atmosphere model, respectively. Some conditional uniqueness of weak solutions, and the global well-posedness of weak solutions with certain class of discontinuous initial data, to the PEs are also presented.

We establish some conditional uniqueness of weak solutions to the viscous primitive equations, and as an application, we prove the global existence and uniqueness of weak solutions, with the initial data taken as small L∞ perturbations of functions in the space X = {v ∈ (L6(Ω))2|∂z v ∈ (L2(Ω))2}; in particular, the initial data are allowed to be discontinuous. Our result generalizes in a uniform way the result on the uniqueness of weak solutions with continuous initial data and that of the so-called z-weak solutions.

In this paper, we consider a nonlinear interaction system between the barotropic mode and the first baroclinic mode of the tropical atmosphere with moisture, which was derived in Frierson et al (2004 Commum. Math. Sci. 2 591-626). We establish the global existence and uniqueness of strong solutions to this system, with initial data in H1, for each fixed convective adjustment relaxation time parameter ϵ > 1. Moreover, if the initial data possess slightly more regularity than H 1, then the unique strong solution depends continuously on the initial data. Furthermore, by establishing several appropriate ϵ-independent estimates, we prove that the system converges to a limiting system as the relaxation time parameter ϵ tends to zero, with a convergence rate of the order O(√ϵ). Moreover, the limiting system has a unique global strong solution for any initial data in H1 and such a unique strong solution depends continuously on the initial data if the initial data posses slightly more regularity than H1. Notably, this solves the viscous version of an open problem proposed in the above mentioned paper of Frierson, Majda and Pauluis.

We prove the global well-posedness of the two-dimensional Boussinesq equations with only vertical dissipation. The initial data (Formula presented.) are required to be only in the space (Formula presented.) , and thus our result generalizes that of Cao and Wu (Arch Rational Mech Anal, 208:985–1004, 2013), where the initial data are assumed to be in (Formula presented.). The assumption on the initial data is at the minimal level that is required to guarantee the uniqueness of the solutions. A logarithmic type limiting Sobolev embedding inequality for the (Formula presented.) norm, in terms of anisotropic Sobolev norms, and a logarithmic type Gronwall inequality are established to obtain the global in time a priori estimates, which guarantee the local solution to be a global one.

An important feature of the planetary oceanic dynamics is that the aspect ratio (the ratio of the depth to horizontal width) is very small. As a result, the hydrostatic approximation (balance), derived by performing the formal small aspect ratio limit to the Navier–Stokes equations, is considered as a fundamental component in the primitive equations of the large-scale ocean. In this paper, we justify rigorously the small aspect ratio limit of the Navier–Stokes equations to the primitive equations. Specifically, we prove that the Navier–Stokes equations, after being scaled appropriately by the small aspect ratio parameter of the physical domain, converge strongly to the primitive equations, globally and uniformly in time, and the convergence rate is of the same order as the aspect ratio parameter. This result validates the hydrostatic approximation for the large-scale oceanic dynamics. Notably, only the weak convergence of this small aspect ratio limit was rigorously justified before.

In this paper, we consider the initial-boundary value problem of the 3D primitive equations for oceanic and atmospheric dynamics with only horizontal diffusion in the temperature equation. Global well-posedness of strong solutions are established with H2 initial data. © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

In this paper, we consider the initial boundary value problem of the three-dimensional primitive equations for planetary oceanic and atmospheric dynamics with only horizontal eddy viscosity in the horizontal momentum equations and only horizontal diffusion in the temperature equation. Global well-posedness of the strong solution is established for any H2 initial data. An N-dimensional logarithmic Sobolev embedding inequality, which bounds the L∞-norm in terms of the Lq-norms up to a logarithm of the Lp-norm for p > N of the first-order derivatives, and a system version of the classic Grönwall inequality are exploited to establish the required a~priori H2 estimates for global regularity.© 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

In this paper, we consider the initial-boundary value problem of the three-dimensional primitive equations for oceanic and atmospheric dynamics with only horizontal viscosity and horizontal diffusivity. We establish the local, in time, well-posedness of strong solutions, for any initial data $(v_0, T_0)\in H^1$, by using the local, in space, type energy estimate. We also establish the global well-posedness of strong solutions for this system, with any initial data $(v_0, T_0)\in H^1\cap L^\infty$, such that $\partial_zv_0\in L^m$, for some $m\in(2,\infty)$, by using the logarithmic type anisotropic Sobolev inequality and a logarithmic type Gronwall inequality. This paper improves the previous results obtained in [Cao, C.; Li, J.; Titi, E.S.: Global well-posedness of the 3D primitive equations with only horizontal viscosity and diffusivity, Comm. Pure Appl.Math., Vol. 69 (2016), 1492-1531.], where the initial data $(v_0, T_0)$ was assumed to have $H^2$ regularity.

In this paper, we consider the initial-boundary value problem of the viscous 3D primitive equations for oceanic and atmospheric dynamics with only vertical diffusion in the temperature equation. Local and global well-posedness of strong solutions are established for this system with H2 initial data. © 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.