Strongly stable dual-pairing summation by parts finite difference schemes for the vector invariant nonlinear shallow water equations -- I: numerical scheme and validation

We present an energy/entropy stable and high order accurate finite difference method for solving the linear/nonlinear shallow water equations (SWE) in vector invariant form using the newly developed dual-pairing (DP) and dispersion-relation preserving (DRP) summation by parts (SBP) finite difference operators. We derive new well-posed boundary conditions for the SWE in one space dimension, formulated in terms of fluxes and applicable to linear and nonlinear problems. For nonlinear problems, entropy stability ensures the boundedness of numerical solutions, however, it does not guarantee convergence. Adequate amount of numerical dissipation is necessary to control high frequency errors which could ruin numerical simulations. Using the dual-pairing SBP framework, we derive high order accurate and nonlinear hyper-viscosity operator which dissipates entropy and enstrophy. The hyper-viscosity operator effectively tames oscillations from shocks and discontinuities, and eliminates poisonous high frequency grid-scale errors. The numerical method is most suitable for the simulations of sub-critical flows typical observed in atmospheric and geostrophic flow problems. We prove a priori error estimates for the semi-discrete approximations of both linear and nonlinear SWE. We verify convergence, accuracy and well-balanced property via the method of manufactured solutions (MMS) and canonical test problems such as the dam break, lake at rest, and a two-dimensional rotating and merging vortex problem.