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Abstract With the prospect of exascale computing, computational methods requiring only local data become especially attractive. Consequently, the typical domain decomposition of atmospheric models means horizontally explicit, vertically implicit (HEVI) time‐stepping schemes warrant further attention. In this analysis, Runge–Kutta implicit–explicit schemes from the literature are analysed for their stability and accuracy using a von Neumann stability analysis of two linear systems. Attention is paid to the numerical phase to indicate the behaviour of phase and group velocities. Where the analysis is tractable, analytically derived expressions are considered. For more complicated cases, amplification factors have been numerically generated and the associated amplitudes and phase diagnosed. Analysis of a system describing acoustic waves has necessitated attributing the three resultant eigenvalues to the three physical modes of the system. To do so, a series of algorithms has been devised to track the eigenvalues across the frequency space. The result enables analysis of whether the schemes exactly preserve the non‐divergent mode; and whether there is evidence of spurious reversal in the direction of group velocities or asymmetry in the damping for the pair of acoustic modes. Frequency ranges that span next‐generation high‐resolution weather models to coarse‐resolution climate models are considered; and a comparison is made of errors accumulated from multiple stability‐constrained shorter time‐steps from the HEVI scheme with a single integration from a fully implicit scheme over the same time interval. Two schemes, ‘Trap2(2,3,2)’ and ‘UJ3(1,3,2)’, both already used in atmospheric models, are identified as offering consistently good stability and representation of phase across all the analyses. Furthermore, according to a simple measure of computational cost, ‘Trap2(2,3,2)’ is the least expensive.
Lock et al. (Mon,) studied this question.