Symmetry Group Analysis of the Shallow Water and Semi-geostrophic Equations

The two-dimensional shallow water equations and their semi-geostrophic approximation that arise in meteorology and oceanography are analysed from the point of view of symmetry groups theory. A complete classification of their associated classical symmetries, potential symmetries, variational symmetries and conservation laws is found. The semi-geostrophic equations are found to lack conservation of angular momentum. We also show how the particle relabelling symmetry can be used to rewrite the semi-geostrophic equations in such a way that a well-defined formal series solution, smooth only in time, may be carried out. We show that such solutions are in the form of an ‘infinite linear cascade’.