Wind Profiler

Diminishing conventional energy resources coupled with polluting byproducts have recently led to intense focus on research and development on renewable energy. Correct assessment of wind potential in Cyprus is more critical than ever with the recent Renewable Energy Law and associated regulations in Northern Cyprus. In this work, time-series wind data from Larnaca region is analyzed in order to i) develop an assessment of wind power potential, suitable turbine type and configuration that could be deployed in south-eastern coast of Cyprus to harness the potential power, and ii) establish a method for further studies based on recent wind measurements at METU Northern Cyprus Campus (NCC). The results indicate that south-west facing vertical axis wind turbines optimized for Type III wind class and cut-in speed of 3 m/s would be suitable for use in Larnaca. The same analysis method will be applied at METU NCC location in north-western Cyprus after minimum time-series data set is complete.

A suitable coastal area model for wind energy applications requires high spatial resolution to resolve the flow induced by the coastal discontinuity in the surface properties. At the meantime, coastal high quality databases are needed for testing new models or formulating new parameterizations of processes. Ground-based remote sensing devices such as lidar are shown to be functional to the study of the vertical wind structure of the coastal atmospheric boundary layer both on-and offshore. We present data from a site located in the Italian Calabria Region, Central Mediterranean, 600m from the Thyrrenian coastline, where a Lidar Doppler, ZephIr (ZephIr ltd) has been operative since July 2013. The lidar monitors wind speed and direction from 10m up to 300m at 10 vertical levels and 10 minute average, and is supported by other instruments providing: Surface Pressure, Solar Radiation, Number of Particles by size (Optical Particle Counter, OPC) and Precipitation; and Relative Humidity, Te...

In this paper a five-beam wind profiler and a collocated meteorological tower are used to estimate the accuracy of four-beam and three-beam wind profiler techniques in measuring horizontal components of the wind. In the traditional three-beam technique, the horizontal components of wind are derived from two orthogonal oblique beams and the vertical beam. In the less used four-beam method, the horizontal winds are found from the radial velocities measured with two orthogonal sets of opposing coplanar beams. In this paper the observations derived from the two wind profiler techniques are compared with the tower measurements using data averaged over 30 min. Results show that, while the winds measured using both methods are in overall agreement with the tower measurements, some of the horizontal components of the three-beam-derived winds are clearly spurious when compared with the tower-measured winds or the winds derived from the four oblique beams. These outliers are partially responsible for a larger 30-min, three-beam standard deviation of the profiler/tower wind speed differences (2.2 m s−1), as opposed to that from the four-beam method (1.2 m s−1). It was also found that many of these outliers were associated with periods of transition between clear air and rain, suggesting that the three-beam technique is more sensitive to small-scale variability in the vertical Doppler velocity because of its reliance on the point measurement from the vertical beam, while the four-beam method is surprisingly robust. Even after the removal of the rain data, the standard deviation of the wind speed error from the three-beam method (1.5 m s−1) is still much larger than that from the four-beam method. Taken together, these results suggest that the spatial variability of the vertical airflow in nonrainy periods or hydrometeor fall velocities in rainy periods makes the vertical beam velocities significantly less representative over the area across the three beams, and decreases the precision of the three-beam method. It is concluded that profilers utilizing the four-beam wind profiler technique have better reliability than wind profilers that rely on the three-beam wind profiler technique.

Comparisons of data taken by collocated Doppler wind profilers using 100-, 500-, and 1000-m pulse lengths show that the velocity profiles obtained with the longer pulses are displaced in height from contemporaneous profiles measured with the shorter pulses. These differences are larger than can be expected from random measurement errors. In addition, there is evidence that the 500-m pulse may underestimate the wind speed when compared with the 100-m pulse.

The standard radar equation does not adequately account for the conditions under which observations are made. In particular, it assumes that atmospheric reflectivity is constant throughout the pulse volume and that observations can be assigned to the peak of the range-weighting function. However, observations from several tropical profilers show that reflectivity gradients with magnitudes greater than 10 dB km−1 are common. Here, a more general radar equation is used to simulate the radar response to the atmosphere. The simulation shows that atmospheric reflectivity gradients cause errors in the range placement. Observed reflectivity gradients can be used to calculate a correction to the range location of the observations that helps to reduce these errors.

Examples of these errors and the application of the correction to selected cases are shown. The evidence presented shows that reflectivity gradients are the main cause of the pervasive differences observed between the different radar observations.

Stratocumulus (Sc) clouds occur frequently over the cold waters of the southeastern Pacific Ocean. Data collected during two Pan American Climate Study research cruises in the tropical eastern Pacific illuminate many aspects of this Sc-topped marine boundary layer (MBL). Here the focus is on understanding gaps in detectable wind-profiler reflectivities during two boreal autumn cruises. After rigorous quality control that included applying the Riddle threshold of minimum signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) detectability, there are many instances with no measurable atmospheric signals through a depth of up to several hundred meters, often lasting for an hour or more. Rain gauge data from the autumn 2004 cruise are used to calibrate the profiler, which allows SNR to be converted to both equivalent reflectivity and the structure-function parameter of the index of refraction . Profiles of statistics from the two profiler modes (resolutions) highlight the wide range of during a 24-h period and bound the atmosphere’s when low-mode gaps are not mirrored in the high-mode data. Considering the gaps in terms of allows them to be understood as indications of reduced “top down” buoyancy processes and/or reduced turbulent intensity, both of which have been demonstrated by previous researchers to be associated with decoupling within the Sc-topped MBL. A decoupling index calculated from surface and ceilometer data strongly suggests that decoupled conditions were common and that the MBL was coupled when gaps in profiler reflectivity were unlikely. Further study of data from other cruises may lead to a method of using profiler reflectivity as an indicator of decoupled conditions.

Observations from a wind profiler and a meteorological tower are utilized to study the evolution of a gravity current that passed over the Meteorological Research Institute's (MRI) field site in Tsukuba, Japan. The gravity current was created by katabatic flow originating on the mountainous slopes west of the field site. The passage of the shallow current was marked by a pronounced pressure disturbance and was accompanied by vertical circulations seen in the tower and profiler data. Direct vertical-beam measurements are difficult, especially at low heights during high-gradient events like density currents. In this study vertical velocities from the profiler are derived from the four oblique beams by use of the Minimizing the Variance of the Differences (MVD) method. The vertical velocities derived from the MVD method agree well with in situ vertical velocities measured by a sonic anemometer on the tower.

The gravity current is analyzed with surface observations. the wind profiler/RASS and tower-mounted instruments. Observations from the profiler/RASS and the tower-mounted instruments illustrate the structure of the gravity current in both wind and temperature fields. The profiler data reveal that there were three regions of waves in the vertical velocity field lee-type waves, a solitary wave and Kelvin-Helmholtz waves. The lee-type waves in the head region of the gravity current seem to have been generated by the gravity current acting as an obstacle to prefrontal flow. The solitary wave was formed from the elevated head of the gravity current that separated from the feeder flow. Profiler vertical-motion observations resolve this wave and enable us to classify it as a Benjamin-Davis-Ono (BDO) type solitary wave. The ducting mechanism that enabled the solitary wave to propagate is also revealed from the wind profiler/RASS measurements. The combination of high-resolution instruments at the MRI site allow us to develop a uniquely detailed picture of a shallow gravity current structure.

A suitable coastal area model for wind energy applications requires high spatial resolution to
resolve the flow induced by the coastal discontinuity in the surface properties. At the
meantime, coastal high quality databases are needed for testing new models or formulating
new parameterizations of processes. Ground-based remote sensing devices such as lidar are
shown to be functional to the study of the vertical wind structure of the coastal atmospheric
boundary layer both on- and offshore.
We present data from a site located in the Italian Calabria Region, Central Mediterranean,
600m from the Thyrrenian coastline, where a Lidar Doppler, ZephIr (ZephIr ltd) has been
operative since July 2013