Quasi-hydrostatic primitive equations for ocean global circulation models

Global existence of weak and strong solutions to the quasi-hydrostatic primitive equations is studied in this paper. This model, that derives from the full non-hydrostatic model for geophysical fluid dynamics in the zero-limit of the aspect ratio, is more realistic than the classical hydrostatic model, since the traditional approximation that consists in neglecting a part of the Coriolis force is relaxed. After justifying the derivation of the model, we provide a rigorous proof of global existence of weak solutions, and well-posedness for strong solutions in dimension three.