primitive equations


primitive equations

[′prim·əd·iv i′kwā·zhənz] (fluid mechanics) The Eulerian equations of motion of a fluid in which the primary dependent variables are the fluid's velocity components; these equations govern a wide variety of fluid motions and form the basis of most hydrodynamical analysis; in meteorology, these equations are frequently specialized to apply directly to the cyclonic-scale motions by the introduction of filtering approximations.