UC Irvine

We consider fully discrete numerical schemes for a downscaling data assimilation algorithm aimed at approximating the velocity field of the 2D Navier-Stokes equations corresponding to given coarse mesh observational measurements. The time discretization is done by considering semi- and fully-implicit Euler schemes, and the spatial discretization is based on a spectral Galerkin method. The two fully discrete algorithms are shown to be unconditionally stable, with respect to the size of the time step, number of time steps and the number of Galerkin modes. Moreover, explicit, uniform in time error estimates between the fully discrete solution and the reference solution corresponding to the observational coarse mesh measurements are obtained, in both the $L^2$ and $H^1$ norms. Notably, the two-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations, subject to the no-slip Dirichlet or periodic boundary conditions, are used in this work as a paradigm. The complete analysis that is presented here can be extended to other two- and three-dimensional dissipative systems under the assumption of global existence and uniqueness.