Profiles of Wind and Turbulence in the Coastal Atmospheric Boundary Layer of Lake Erie
Type
Conference PaperKAUST Department
Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Sciences and Engineering (CEMSE) DivisionEarth Science and Engineering Program
Physical Science and Engineering (PSE) Division
Date
2014-06-16Online Publication Date
2014-06-16Print Publication Date
2014-06-16Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/550187
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Prediction of wind resource in coastal zones is difficult due to the complexity of flow in the coastal atmospheric boundary layer (CABL). A three week campaign was conducted over Lake Erie in May 2013 to investigate wind characteristics and improve model parameterizations in the CABL. Vertical profiles of wind speed up to 200 m were measured onshore and offshore by lidar wind profilers, and horizontal gradients of wind speed by a 3-D scanning lidar. Turbulence data were collected from sonic anemometers deployed onshore and offshore. Numerical simulations were conducted with the Weather Research Forecasting (WRF) model with 2 nested domains down to a resolution of 1-km over the lake. Initial data analyses presented in this paper investigate complex flow patterns across the coast. Acceleration was observed up to 200 m above the surface for flow coming from the land to the water. However, by 7 km off the coast the wind field had not yet reached equilibrium with the new surface (water) conditions. The surface turbulence parameters over the water derived from the sonic data could not predict wind profiles observed by the ZephlR lidar located offshore. Horizontal wind speed gradients near the coast show the influence of atmospheric stability on flow dynamics. Wind profiles retrieved from the 3-D scanning lidar show evidence of nocturnal low level jets (LLJs). The WRF model was able to capture the occurrence of LLJ events, but its performance varied in predicting their intensity, duration, and the location of the jet core.Citation
Profiles of Wind and Turbulence in the Coastal Atmospheric Boundary Layer of Lake Erie 2014, 524:012117 Journal of Physics: Conference SeriesPublisher
IOP PublishingConference/Event name
5th Science of Making Torque from Wind Conference, TORQUE 2014Additional Links
http://stacks.iop.org/1742-6596/524/i=1/a=012117?key=crossref.1d1fdc68262f957cc1b7eb60f8967390ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1088/1742-6596/524/1/012117