method of characteristics

From Glossary of Meteorology
The printable version is no longer supported and may have rendering errors. Please update your browser bookmarks and please use the default browser print function instead.
A method of solving systems of nonlinear differential equations by constructing the characteristics for the equations over the region of known initial data and proceeding along these lines to determine the solutions for later times or for new regions of space.

This method has been used successfully in the study of gas flows and has been applied to the meteorological problem of one-dimensional unsteady flow of air under an inversion surface.
Freeman, J. C. 1951. Compendium of Meteorology. 421–433.

Copyright 2024 American Meteorological Society (AMS). For permission to reuse any portion of this work, please contact [email protected]. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be “fair use” under Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act (17 U.S. Code § 107) or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S.Copyright Act (17 USC § 108) does not require AMS’s permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form, such as on a website or in a searchable database, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statement, require written permission or a license from AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policy statement.