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The Computational Methods in Geophysics training, organised by ChEESE CoE in collaboration with Geo-Inquire, NCC Spain, NCC Italy, NCC Portugal and NCC Türkiye aims at training students in numerical methods applied to solve partial differential equations in geophysics. Today many researchers use community codes (e.g. developed by CHEESE) often with little training in the underlying mathematical methods. The goal is to provide a basic understanding of a variety of numerical methods used in geophysics today. While we use the elastic (acoustic) wave equation (mostly in 1D) to illustrate the concepts, the knowledge can be easily transferred to other systems in geophysics. The course is “practical” in the sense that we provide the link from the mathematical algorithm to the actual code in Python using Jupyter notebooks.
The course format will be lectures interspersed (time-permitting) with simple theoretical exercises, comprehension questions, and Jupyter notebook exercises. The methods discussed will be the finite-difference method, the pseudospectral method, linear and spectral elements (and – if there is interest – the finite volume and the discontinuous Galerkin method). Note that the purpose is NOT to discuss any specific community codes, rather to provide information on what is under the hood and how to avoid errors and – for example – which methods are favorable for complex, geometries, topography, problems with difficult boundary conditions, parallel computers, etc.