Europe's offshore winds assessed with synthetic aperture radar, ASCAT and WRF

Charlotte Bay Hasager*, Andrea N. Hahmann, Tobias Torben Ahsbahs, Ioanna Karagali, Tija Sile, Merete Badger, Jakob Mann

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

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    Abstract

    Europe's offshore wind resource mapping is part of the New European Wind Atlas (NEWA) international consortium effort. This study presents the results of analysis of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) ocean wind maps based on Envisat and Sentinel-1 with a brief description of the wind retrieval process and Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) ocean wind maps. The wind statistics at 10 and 100 m above mean sea level (a.m.s.l.) height using an extrapolation procedure involving simulated long-term stability over oceans are presented for both SAR and ASCAT. Furthermore, the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) offshore wind atlas of NEWA is presented. This has 3 km grid spacing with data every 30 min for 30 years from 1989 to 2018, while ASCAT has 12.5 km and SAR has 2 km grid spacing. Offshore mean wind speed maps at 100 m a.m.s.l. height from ASCAT, SAR, WRF and ERA5 at a European scale are compared. A case study on offshore winds near Crete compares SAR and WRF for flow from the north, west and all directions. The paper highlights the ability of the WRF model to simulate the overall European wind climatology and the near-coastal winds constrained by the resolution of the coastal topography in the WRF model simulations.
    Original languageEnglish
    JournalWind Energy Science
    Volume5
    Issue number1
    Pages (from-to)375-390
    Number of pages16
    ISSN2366-7443
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2020

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