Field measurements of windbreak effects on airflow, turbulent exchanges and microclimates

2002 ◽  
Vol 42 (6) ◽  
pp. 665 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. A. Cleugh
Keyword(s):  
Wind Speed ◽  
Water Vapour ◽  
Incident Angle ◽  
Surface Wind ◽  
Field Measurements ◽  
Experimental Program ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Speed Reduction ◽  
Temperature And Humidity ◽  
The Impact

While there has been considerable research into airflow around windbreaks, the interaction of this airflow with the exchanges of heat and water vapour has received far less attention. Yet, the effects of windbreaks on microclimates, water use and agricultural productivity depend, in part, on this interaction. A field and wind tunnel experimental program was conducted to quantify the effects of windbreaks on microclimates and evaporation fluxes. This paper describes the field measurements, which were conducted over a 6-week period at a tree windbreak site located in undulating terrain in south-east Australia. The expected features of airflow around porous windbreaks were observed despite the less than ideal nature of the site. As predicted from theory, the air temperature and humidity were elevated, by day, in the quiet zone and the location of the peak increase in temperature and humidity coincided with the location of the minimum wind speed. However, this increase in temperature and humidity was small in size and restricted to the zone within 10 windbreak heights (H) of the windbreak. This pattern contrasts with that for the near surface wind speeds, which were reduced by up to 80% in a sheltered zone that extended from 5 H upwind to over 25 H downwind of the windbreak. Similar differences were found between the turbulent scalar (heat, water vapour) and velocity terms. While both are reduced in the quiet zone, the turbulent scalar terms near the surface were substantially enhanced at the location where the wake zone begins. Here the mean wind speed is reduced by 50% and the turbulent velocity terms return to their upwind values. Wind speed reductions varied linearly with [cos (90 – α)], where α is the incident angle of the wind, for sites located 6 H downwind. This means that the spatial pattern of wind speed reduction applies to all wind directions, provided that distance downwind is expressed in terms of streamwise distance. However, shelter in the near-break region is slightly increased as the wind blows more obliquely towards the windbreak. The atmospheric demand in the quiet zone was reduced when the humidity of the upwind air was low. In such conditions, windbreaks can 'protect' growing crops from the impact of dry air with high atmospheric demand. The corollary is that in humid conditions, the atmospheric demand in the quiet zone can be increased as a result of shelter.

Impact of shelter on crop microclimates: a synthesis of results from wind tunnel and field experiments

2002 ◽  
Vol 42 (6) ◽  
pp. 679 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. A. Cleugh ◽  
D. E. Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Wind Speed ◽  
Wind Tunnel ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Surface Wind ◽  
Mixing Layer ◽  
Flow Region ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Wind Speeds ◽  
Temperature And Humidity ◽  
Wake Zone

The purpose of this paper is to synthesise data from the literature, and acquired during an extensive set of wind tunnel and field experiments, to quantify the effect of porous windbreaks on airflow, microclimates and evaporation fluxes. The paper considers flow oriented both normal (i.e. at right angles) and oblique to the windbreak, in addition to the confounding effects of topography. The wind tunnel results confirm the validity of the turbulent mixing layer as a model for characterising the airflow around a windbreak and for predicting the locations of the quiet and wake zones. This mixing layer is initiated at the top of the windbreak and grows with distance downwind until it intersects the vegetation or surface, marking the downwind extent of the quiet zone where the maximum shelter occurs. The 3 factors that determine the growth of this mixing layer are the windbreak porosity, windbreak height and the nature of the terrain upwind. For wind that is flowing normal to a porous windbreak in the field, the latter 2 have the primary influence on the size of the sheltered zone, while windbreak porosity is the main factor determining the amount of shelter. Analyses of the effect of porosity revealed that the amount of wind shelter increases as windbreak porosity is reduced, but the downwind extent of the sheltered zone does not vary with windbreak porosity. Thus, the suggestion from older studies that low-porosity (i.e. dense) windbreaks lead to a reduced sheltered area is not supported by the wind tunnel measurements. In the absence of shading effects, temperature and/or humidity are increased in the quiet zone, mirroring the pattern and magnitude of wind shelter. Thus, the increase in temperature and humidity is greatest where the minimum wind speed occurs, and the magnitude of the increase is smaller for more porous windbreaks. The humidity and air (but not surface) temperatures are decreased very slightly in the wake zone, although these small changes were not significant in a field situation. Microclimate changes, therefore, occur over a much smaller distance downwind than wind shelter, and are negligible for the very porous windbreak. For example, at 20 windbreak heights downwind, the wind speed may still be 80% of its upwind value, while the air and surface temperature and humidity have returned to their upwind values after 12–15 windbreak heights. Furthermore, these changes in temperature and humidity vary with the type of land cover, surface moisture status and the temperature and humidity of the 'regional' air. Over the course of a growing season, these changes can be masked by soil and climate variability. The turbulent scalar fluxes, i.e. evaporation and heat fluxes, also differ from the pattern of near-surface wind speeds. While significantly reduced in the quiet zone, they show a very large peak at the start of the wake zone — the location where the mixing layer intersects the surface. Thus, caution is required when extrapolating from the spatial pattern of shelter to microclimates and turbulent fluxes. Wind flowing at angles other than normal to the windbreak has 2 effects on the pattern of wind shelter. First, for the medium and low porosity windbreaks used in the wind tunnel, the amount of wind shelter is increased slightly in the bleed flow region near the windbreak, i.e. there is an apparent reduction in windbreak porosity as the wind direction becomes more oblique to the windbreak. Second, the profile of near surface wind speeds is similar to that for flow oriented normal to the windbreak, providing that the changes in distance from the windbreak are accounted for using simple geometry. The field data agree with these results, but show an even greater influence of the windbreak structure on the pattern of wind shelter in the bleed flow region, extending from the windbreak to at least 3 windbreak heights downwind, precluding any generalisations about the flow in this region.

scholarly journals Changes of regional meteorology induced by anthropogenic heat and their impacts on air quality in South China

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Min Xie ◽  
Kuanguang Zhu ◽  
Tijian Wang ◽  
Wen Feng ◽  
Minggao Li ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Wind Speed ◽  
South China ◽  
Air Pollutants ◽  
Surface Wind ◽  
Vertical Movement ◽  
Anthropogenic Heat ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Big Cities ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Anthropogenic heat (AH) emissions from human activities can change the urban circulation and thereby affect the air pollution in and around cities. Based on statistic data, the spatial distribution of AH flux in South China is estimated. With the aid of the WRF/Chem model in which the AH parameterization is developed to incorporate the gridded AH emissions with temporal variation, the simulations for January and July in 2014 are performed over South China. By analyzing the differences between the simulations with and without adding AH, the impact of AH on regional meteorology and air quality are quantified. The results show that the regional annual mean AH fluxes over South China are only 0.87 W/m2, but the values for the urban areas of the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region can be close to 60 W/m2. These AH emissions can significantly change the urban heat island and urban-breeze circulations in the big cities. In the PRD city cluster, 2-m air temperature rises up by 1.1 ℃ in January and over 0.5 ℃ in July, the boundary layer height increases by 120 m in January and 90 m in July, 10-m wind speed is intensified over 0.35 m/s in January and 0.3 m/s in July, and the accumulative precipitation is enhanced by 20–40 % in July. These changes of meteorological conditions can significantly impact the spatial and vertical distributions of air pollutants. Due to the increases of PBLH, surface wind speed and upward vertical movement, the concentrations of primary air pollutants decrease near surface and increase at the upper levels. But the vertical changes of O3 concentrations show the different patterns in different seasons. The surface O3 concentrations in big cities increase with maximum values over 2.5 ppb in January, while O3 is reduced at the lower layers and increases at the upper layers above some megacities in July. This phenomenon should be attributed to the facts that the chemical effects can play a significant role in O3 changes over South China in winter, while the vertical movement can be the dominant effect in some big cities in summer. Adding the gridded AH emissions can better describe the heterogeneous impacts of AH on regional meteorology and air quality, suggesting that more studies on AH should be carried out in the climate and air quality assessments.

scholarly journals The Impact of Grid and Spectral Nudging on the Variance of the Near-Surface Wind Speed

2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (5) ◽  
pp. 1021-1038 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Louise Vincent ◽  
Andrea N. Hahmann
Keyword(s):  
Wind Speed ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Surface Wind ◽  
Ground Level ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Spectral Nudging ◽  
Outer Domain ◽  
The Impact

AbstractGrid and spectral nudging are effective ways of preventing drift from large-scale weather patterns in regional climate models. However, the effect of nudging on the wind speed variance is unclear. In this study, the impact of grid and spectral nudging on near-surface and upper boundary layer wind variance in the Weather Research and Forecasting Model is analyzed. Simulations are run on nested domains with horizontal grid spacing of 15 and 5 km over the Baltic Sea region. For the 15-km domain, 36-h simulations initialized each day are compared with 11-day simulations with either grid or spectral nudging at and above 1150 m above ground level (AGL). Nested 5-km simulations are not nudged directly but inherit boundary conditions from the 15-km experiments. Spatial and temporal spectra show that grid nudging causes smoothing of the wind in the 15-km domain at all wavenumbers, both at 1150 m AGL and near the surface where nudging is not applied directly, while spectral nudging mainly affects longer wavenumbers. Maps of mesoscale variance show spatial smoothing for both grid and spectral nudging, although the effect is less pronounced for spectral nudging. On the inner, 5-km domain, an indirect smoothing impact of nudging is seen up to 200 km inward from the dominant inflow boundary at 1150 m AGL, but there is minimal smoothing from the nudging near the surface, indicating that nudging an outer domain is an appropriate configuration for wind-resource modeling.

scholarly journals Impacts of Satellite-Observed Winds and Total Precipitable Water on WRF Short-Range Forecasts over the Indian Region during the 2006 Summer Monsoon

2009 ◽  
Vol 24 (6) ◽  
pp. 1706-1731 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Rakesh ◽  
Randhir Singh ◽  
P. K. Pal ◽  
P. C. Joshi
Keyword(s):  
Wind Speed ◽  
Satellite Data ◽  
Short Range ◽  
Surface Wind ◽  
Precipitable Water ◽  
Indian Region ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Total Precipitable Water ◽  
Temperature And Humidity ◽  
Range Forecasts

Abstract Assimilation experiments have been performed with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model’s three-dimensional variational data assimilation (3DVAR) scheme to assess the impacts of NASA’s Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT) near-surface winds, and Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) wind speed and total precipitable water (TPW) on the analysis and on short-range forecasts over the Indian region. The control (without satellite data) as well as WRF 3DVAR sensitivity runs (which assimilated satellite data) were made for 48 h starting daily at 0000 UTC during July 2006. The impacts of assimilating the different satellite dataset were measured in comparison to the control run, which does not assimilate any satellite data. The spatial distribution of the forecast impacts (FIs) for wind, temperature, and humidity from 1-month assimilation experiments for July 2006 demonstrated that on an average, for 24- and 48-h forecasts, the satellite data provided useful information. Among the experiments, WRF wind speed prediction was improved by QuikSCAT surface wind and SSM/I TPW assimilation, while temperature and humidity prediction was improved due to the assimilation of SSM/I TPW. The rainfall prediction has also been improved significantly due to the assimilation of SSM/I TPW, with the largest improvement seen over the west coast of India. Through an improvement of the surface wind field, the QuikSCAT data also yielded a positive impact on the precipitation, particularly for day 1 forecasts. In contrast, the assimilation of SSM/I wind speed degraded the humidity and rainfall predictions.

scholarly journals Impact of Satellite Data Assimilation in Atmospheric Reanalysis on the Marine Wind and Wave Climate

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (17) ◽  
pp. 6351-6361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wataru Sasaki
Keyword(s):  
Wind Speed ◽  
Data Assimilation ◽  
Southern Ocean ◽  
Satellite Data ◽  
North Pacific ◽  
Surface Wind ◽  
Surface Wind Speed ◽  
Surface Winds ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
The Impact

Abstract This study investigated the impact of assimilating satellite data into atmospheric reanalyses on trends in ocean surface winds and waves. Two experiments were performed using a numerical wave model forced by near-surface winds: one derived from the Japanese 55-year Reanalysis (JRA-55; experiment A) and the other derived from JRA-55 using assimilated conventional observations only (JRA-55C; experiment B). The results showed that the satellite data assimilation reduced upward trends of the annual mean of wave energy flux (WEF) in the midlatitude North Pacific and southern ocean (30°–60°S), south of Australia, from 1959 to 2012. It was also found that the assimilation of scatterometer winds reduced the near-surface wind speed in the midlatitude North Pacific after the mid-1990s, which resulted in the reduced trend in WEF from 1959 to 2012. By contrast, assimilation of the satellite radiances for 1973–94 increased near-surface wind speed in the southern ocean, south of Australia, whereas the assimilation of the scatterometer winds after the mid-1990s reduced wind speed. The latter led to the reduced trend in WEF south of Australia from 1959 to 2012.

scholarly journals The Impact of Atmosphere–Ocean–Wave Coupling on the Near-Surface Wind Speed in Forecasts of Extratropical Cyclones

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emanuele S. Gentile ◽  
Suzanne L. Gray ◽  
Janet F. Barlow ◽  
Huw W. Lewis ◽  
John M. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Wind Speed ◽  
Surface Wind ◽  
Surface Wind Speed ◽  
Sea Surface ◽  
Model Systems ◽  
Sea State ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Extreme Surface ◽  
Wind Speeds ◽  
The Impact

AbstractAccurate modelling of air–sea surface exchanges is crucial for reliable extreme surface wind-speed forecasts. While atmosphere-only weather forecast models represent ocean and wave effects through sea-state independent parametrizations, coupled multi-model systems capture sea-state dynamics by integrating feedbacks between the atmosphere, ocean and wave model components. Here, we investigate the sensitivity of extreme surface wind speeds to air–sea exchanges at the kilometre scale using coupled and uncoupled configurations of the Met Office’s UK Regional Coupled Environmental Prediction system. The case period includes the passage of extra-tropical cyclones Helen, Ali, and Bronagh, which brought maximum gusts of 36 m s$$^{-1}$$ - 1 over the UK. Compared with the atmosphere-only results, coupling to the ocean decreases the domain-average sea-surface temperature by up to 0.5 K. Inclusion of coupling to waves reduce the 98th percentile 10-m wind speed by up to 2 m s$$^{-1}$$ - 1 as young, growing wind waves reduce the wind speed by increasing the sea-surface aerodynamic roughness. Impacts on gusts are more modest, with local reductions of up to 1 m s$$^{-1}$$ - 1 , due to enhanced boundary-layer turbulence which partially offsets air–sea momentum transfer. Using a new drag parametrization based on the Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere Response Experiment 4.0 parametrization, with a cap on the neutral drag coefficient and reduction for wind speeds exceeding 27 m s$$^{-1}$$ - 1 , the atmosphere-only model achieves equivalent impacts on 10-m wind speeds and gusts as from coupling to waves. Overall, the new drag parametrization achieves the same 20% improvement in forecast 10-m wind-speed skill as coupling to waves, with the advantage of saving the computational cost of the ocean and wave models.

Recurrence Characteristics Analysis of Near-Surface Wind Speed Signal with Different Sampling Frequencies

2014 ◽  
Vol 599-601 ◽  
pp. 1605-1609 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ming Zeng ◽  
Zhan Xie Wu ◽  
Qing Hao Meng ◽  
Jing Hai Li ◽  
Shu Gen Ma
Keyword(s):  
Wind Speed ◽  
Surface Wind ◽  
Surface Wind Speed ◽  
Recurrence Plot ◽  
Sampling Frequency ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Gas Leakage ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Characteristics Analysis ◽  
Quantification Analysis

The wind is the main factor to influence the propagation of gas in the atmosphere. Therefore, the wind signal obtained by anemometer will provide us valuable clues for searching gas leakage sources. In this paper, the Recurrence Plot (RP) and Recurrence Quantification Analysis (RQA) are applied to analyze the influence of recurrence characteristics of the wind speed time series under the condition of the same place, the same time period and with the sampling frequency of 1hz, 2hz, 4.2hz, 5hz, 8.3hz, 12.5hz and 16.7hz respectively. Research results show that when the sampling frequency is higher than 5hz, the trends of recurrence nature of different groups are basically unchanged. However, when the sampling frequency is set below 5hz, the original trend of recurrence nature is destroyed, because the recurrence characteristic curves obtained using different sampling frequencies appear cross or overlapping phenomena. The above results indicate that the anemometer will not be able to fully capture the detailed information in wind field when its sampling frequency is lower than 5hz. The recurrence characteristics analysis of the wind speed signals provides an important basis for the optimal selection of anemometer.

scholarly journals Airflow Characteristics According to the Change in the Height and Porous Rate of Building Roofs for Efficient Installation of Small Wind Power Generators

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 5688
Author(s):  
Jangyoul You ◽  
Kipyo You ◽  
Minwoo Park ◽  
Changhee Lee
Keyword(s):  
Wind Speed ◽  
Wind Power ◽  
Turbulence Intensity ◽  
Flow Characteristics ◽  
High Porosity ◽  
Power Generators ◽  
Speed Reduction ◽  
Reduction Effect ◽  
Wind Power Generators ◽  
The Impact

In this paper, the air flow characteristics and the impact of wind power generators were analyzed according to the porosity and height of the parapet installed in the rooftop layer. The wind speed at the top was decreasing as the parapet was installed. However, the wind speed reduction effect was decreasing as the porosity rate increased. In addition, the increase in porosity significantly reduced turbulence intensity and reduced it by up to 40% compared to no railing. In the case of parapets with sufficient porosity, the effect of reducing turbulence intensity was also increased as the height increased. Therefore, it was confirmed that sufficient parapet height and high porosity reduce the effect of reducing wind speed by parapets and significantly reducing the turbulence intensity, which can provide homogeneous wind speed during installation of wind power generators.

scholarly journals Snow density along the route traversed by the Japanese-Swedish Antarctic Expedition 2007/08

2012 ◽  
Vol 58 (209) ◽  
pp. 529-539 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shin Sugiyama ◽  
Hiroyuki Enomoto ◽  
Shuji Fujita ◽  
Kotaro Fukui ◽  
Fumio Nakazawa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Wind Speed ◽  
Surface Wind ◽  
Coastal Region ◽  
Snow Density ◽  
Syowa Station ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
A Value ◽  
Surface Snow ◽  
The Mean ◽  
The Antarctic

AbstractDuring the Japanese-Swedish Antarctic traverse expedition of 2007/08, we measured the surface snow density at 46 locations along the 2800 km long route from Syowa station to Wasa station in East Antarctica. The mean snow density for the upper 1 (or 0.5) m layer varied from 333 to 439 kg m-3 over a region spanning an elevation range of 365-3800 ma.s.l. The density variations were associated with the elevation of the sampling sites; the density decreased as the elevation increased, moving from the coastal region inland. However, the density was relatively insensitive to the change in elevation along the ridge on the Antarctic plateau between Dome F and Kohnen stations. Because surface wind is weak in this region, irrespective of elevation, the wind speed was suggested to play a key role in the near-surface densification. The results of multiple regression performed on the density using meteorological variables were significantly improved by the inclusion of wind speed as a predictor. The regression analysis yielded a linear dependence between the density and the wind speed, with a coefficient of 13.5 kg m-3 (m s-1)-1. This relationship is nearly three times stronger than a value previously computed from a dataset available in Antarctica. Our data indicate that the wind speed is more important to estimates of the surface snow density in Antarctica than has been previously assumed.

scholarly journals The Effects of Assimilating Conventional and ATOVS Data on Forecasted Near-Surface Wind with WRF-3DVAR

2015 ◽  
Vol 143 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Feimin Zhang ◽  
Yi Yang ◽  
Chenghai Wang
Keyword(s):  
Data Assimilation ◽  
Surface Wind ◽  
Lower Atmosphere ◽  
Observation Data ◽  
Initial Field ◽  
Infrared Observation ◽  
Forecast Performance ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Positive Effect

Abstract In this paper, the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model with the three-dimensional variational data assimilation (WRF-3DVAR) system is used to investigate the impact on the near-surface wind forecast of assimilating both conventional data and Advanced Television Infrared Observation Satellite (TIROS) Operational Vertical Sounder (ATOVS) radiances compared with assimilating conventional data only. The results show that the quality of the initial field and the forecast performance of wind in the lower atmosphere are improved in both assimilation cases. Assimilation results capture the spatial distribution of the wind speed, and the observation data assimilation has a positive effect on near-surface wind forecasts. Although the impacts of assimilating ATOVS radiances on near-surface wind forecasts are limited, the fine structure of local weather systems illustrated by the WRF-3DVAR system suggests that assimilating ATOVS radiances has a positive effect on the near-surface wind forecast under conditions that ATOVS radiances in the initial condition are properly amplified. Assimilating conventional data is an effective approach for improving the forecast of the near-surface wind.

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