We introduce a mixed discontinuous/continuous finite element pair for ocean modelling, with continuous quadratic pressure/layer depth and discontinuous velocity. We investigate the finite element pair applied to the linear shallow-water equations on an f-plane. The element pair has the property that all geostrophically balanced states which strongly satisfy the boundary conditions have discrete divergence equal to exactly zero and hence are exactly steady states of the discretised equations. This means that the finite element pair has excellent geostrophic balance properties. We illustrate these properties using numerical tests and provide convergence calculations which show that the discretisation has quadratic errors, indicating that the element pair is stable.
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