Identification

Title

Simulating impacts of real-world wind farms on land surface temperature using the WRF Model: Validation with observations

Abstract

This study simulates the impacts of real-world wind farms on land surface temperature (LST) using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model driven by realistic initial and boundary conditions. The simulated wind farm impacts are compared with the observations from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the first Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP) field campaign. Simulations are performed over west-central Texas for the month of July throughout 7 years (2003-04 and 2010-14). Two groups of experiments are conducted: 1) direct validations of the simulated LST changes between the preturbine period (2003-04) and postturbine period (2010-14) validated against the MODIS observations; and 2) a model sensitivity test of LST to the wind turbine parameterization by examining LST differences with and without the wind turbines for the postturbine period. Overall, the WRF Model is moderately successful at reproducing the observed spatiotemporal variations of the background LST but has difficulties in reproducing such variations for the turbine-induced LST change signals at pixel levels. However, the model is still able to reproduce coherent and consistent responses of the observed LST changes at regional scales. The simulated wind farm-induced LST warming signals agree well with the satellite observations in terms of their spatial coupling with the wind farm layout. Moreover, the simulated areal mean warming signal (0.20 degrees-0.26 degrees C) is about a tenth of a degree smaller than that from MODIS (0.33 degrees C). However, these results suggest that the current wind turbine parameterization tends to induce a cooling effect behind the wind farm region at nighttime, which has not been confirmed by previous field campaigns and satellite observations.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7ms3wgt

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2017-12-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact