This article surveys research on the application of compatible finite element methods to large-scale atmosphere and ocean simulation. Compatible finite element methods extend Arakawa’s C-grid finite difference scheme to the finite element world. They are constructed from a discrete de Rham complex, which is a sequence of finite element spaces linked by the operators of differential calculus. The use of discrete de Rham complexes to solve partial differential equations is well established, but in this article we focus on the specifics of dynamical cores for simulating weather, oceans and climate. The most important consequence of the discrete de Rham complex is the Hodge–Helmholtz decomposition, which has been used to exclude the possibility of several types of spurious oscillations from linear equations of geophysical flow. This means that compatible finite element spaces provide a useful framework for building dynamical cores. In this article we introduce the main concepts of compatible finite element spaces, and discuss their wave propagation properties. We survey some methods for discretizing the transport terms that arise in dynamical core equation systems, and provide some example discretizations, briefly discussing their iterative solution. Then we focus on the recent use of compatible finite element spaces in designing structure preserving methods, surveying variational discretizations, Poisson bracket discretizations and consistent vorticity transport.