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Methods for stabilising the turbulent cascade of potential enstrophy are analysed and compared for a compatible finite element discretisation of the rotating shallow water equations. These different approaches to upwinding the potential vorticity include the well-known anticipated potential vorticity method (APVM), streamwise upwind Petrov-Galerkin (SUPG) method, and a more recent method where the trial functions are evaluated downstream within the reference element. In all cases the upwinding scheme conserves both potential vorticity and energy, since the antisymmetric structure of the equations is preserved. The APVM leads to a symmetric definite correction to the potential enstrophy that is dissipative and inconsistent. The SUPG scheme introduces a consistent correction to the APVM scheme that acts as a backscatter term ensuring a richer depiction of turbulent dynamics. The downwinded trial function …