On the shallow atmosphere approximation in finite element dynamical   cores
  We provide an approach to implementing the shallow atmosphere approximation in three dimensional finite element discretisations for dynamical cores. The approach makes use of the fact that the shallow atmosphere approximation metric can be obtained by writing equations on a three-dimensional manifold embedded in $\mathbb{R}^4$ with a restriction of the Euclidean metric. We show that finite element discretisations constructed this way are equivalent to the use of a modified three dimensional mesh for the construction of metric terms. We demonstrate our approach via a convergence test for a prototypical elliptic problem. 
C. J. Cotter, D. A. Ham, A.T.T. McRae, L. Mitchell and A. Natale
math.NA