Spline Modelling of Geostrophic Flow: Theoretical and Algorithmic Aspects

Spline functions that approximate (geostrophic) wind field or ocean circulation data are developed in a weighted Sobolev space setting on the (unit) sphere. Two problems are discussed in more detail: the modelling of the (geostrophic) wind field from (i)discrete scalar air pressure data and (ii) discrete vectorial velocity data. Domain decomposition methods based on the Schwarz alternating algorithm for positive definite symmetric matrices are described for solving large linear systems occuring in vectorial spline interpolation or smoothing of geostrophic flow