Three-Dimensional Wind Profiling of Offshore Wind Energy Areas With Airborne Doppler Lidar

Science.gov (United States)

Koch, Grady J.; Beyon, Jeffrey Y.; Cowen, Larry J.; Kavaya, Michael J.; Grant, Michael S.

2014-01-01

A technique has been developed for imaging the wind field over offshore areas being considered for wind farming. This is accomplished with an eye-safe 2-micrometer wavelength coherent Doppler lidar installed in an aircraft. By raster scanning the aircraft over the wind energy area (WEA), a three-dimensional map of the wind vector can be made. This technique was evaluated in 11 flights over the Virginia and Maryland offshore WEAs. Heights above the ocean surface planned for wind turbines are shown to be within the marine boundary layer, and the wind vector is seen to show variation across the geographical area of interest at turbine heights.

On the Effect of Offshore Wind Parks on Ocean Dynamics

Science.gov (United States)

Ludewig, E.; Pohlmann, T.

2012-12-01

Nowadays renewable energy resources play a key role in the energy supply discussion and especially an increasingly interest in wind energy induces intensified installations of wind parks. At this offshore wind energy gains in popularity in the course of higher and more consistent energy availability than over land. For example Germany's government adopted a national interurban offshore wind energy program comprising the construction of hundreds of wind turbines within Germany's Exclusive Economic Zone to ensure up to 50% of Germany's renewable energy supply. The large number of installation in coastal regions asks for analyzing the impact of offshore wind parks (OWPs) on the atmosphere and the ocean. As known from literature such wind parks excite also-called wake-effect and such an influence on the wind field in turn affects ocean circulation. To cover OWP's impact on ocean dynamics we evaluate model simulations using the Hamburg Shelf-Ocean-Model (HAMSOM). All simulations were driven with a wind forcing produced by the Mesoscale Atmosphere Model of the Hamburg University (METRAS) which has implemented wind turbines. Wind forcing data were generated in collaboration with and by courtesy of the Meteorological Institute of the University of Hamburg, Department Technical Meteorology, Numeric Modeling-METRAS. To evaluate dynamical changes forced by the OWP's wind wake-effect we did a sensitivity study with a theoretical setup of a virtual ocean of 60m depth with a flat bottom and a temperature and salinity stratification according to common North Sea's conditions. Here our results show that already a small OWP of 12 wind turbines, placed in an area of 4 km^2, lead to a complex change in ocean dynamics. Due to the wake-effect zones of upwelling and downwelling are formed within a minute after turning-on wind turbines. The evolving vertical cells have a size of around 15x15 kilometers with a vertical velocity in order of 10^-2 mm/sec influencing the dynamic of an area

The Interaction of Ocean Waves and Wind

Science.gov (United States)

Janssen, Peter

2004-10-01

Describing in detail the two-way interaction between wind and ocean waves, this book discusses ocean wave evolution in accordance with the energy balance equation. An extensive overview of nonlinear transfer is given, and the role of four-wave interactions in the generation of extreme events as well as the effects on ocean circulation is included. The volume will interest ocean wave modellers, physicists, applied mathematicians, and engineers.

Circular Conditional Autoregressive Modeling of Vector Fields.

Science.gov (United States)

Modlin, Danny; Fuentes, Montse; Reich, Brian

2012-02-01

As hurricanes approach landfall, there are several hazards for which coastal populations must be prepared. Damaging winds, torrential rains, and tornadoes play havoc with both the coast and inland areas; but, the biggest seaside menace to life and property is the storm surge. Wind fields are used as the primary forcing for the numerical forecasts of the coastal ocean response to hurricane force winds, such as the height of the storm surge and the degree of coastal flooding. Unfortunately, developments in deterministic modeling of these forcings have been hindered by computational expenses. In this paper, we present a multivariate spatial model for vector fields, that we apply to hurricane winds. We parameterize the wind vector at each site in polar coordinates and specify a circular conditional autoregressive (CCAR) model for the vector direction, and a spatial CAR model for speed. We apply our framework for vector fields to hurricane surface wind fields for Hurricane Floyd of 1999 and compare our CCAR model to prior methods that decompose wind speed and direction into its N-S and W-E cardinal components.

Sensitivity of ocean oxygenation to variations in tropical zonal wind stress magnitude

Science.gov (United States)

Ridder, Nina N.; England, Matthew H.

2014-09-01

Ocean oxygenation has been observed to have changed over the past few decades and is projected to change further under global climate change due to an interplay of several mechanisms. In this study we isolate the effect of modified tropical surface wind stress conditions on the evolution of ocean oxygenation in a numerical climate model. We find that ocean oxygenation varies inversely with low-latitude surface wind stress. Approximately one third of this response is driven by sea surface temperature anomalies; the remaining two thirds result from changes in ocean circulation and marine biology. Global mean O2 concentration changes reach maximum values of +4 μM and -3.6 μM in the two most extreme perturbation cases of -30% and +30% wind change, respectively. Localized changes lie between +92 μM under 30% reduced winds and -56 μM for 30% increased winds. Overall, we find that the extent of the global low-oxygen volume varies with the same sign as the wind perturbation; namely, weaker winds reduce the low-oxygen volume on the global scale and vice versa for increased trade winds. We identify two regions, one in the Pacific Ocean off Chile and the other in the Indian Ocean off Somalia, that are of particular importance for the evolution of oxygen minimum zones in the global ocean.

Evaluation of HY-2A Scatterometer Wind Vectors Using Data from Buoys, ERA-Interim and ASCAT during 2012–2014

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jianyong Xing

2016-05-01

Full Text Available The first Chinese operational Ku-band scatterometer on board Haiyang-2A (HY-2A, launched in August 2011, is designed for monitoring the global ocean surface wind. This study estimates the quality of the near-real-time (NRT retrieval wind speed and wind direction from the HY-2A scatterometer for 36 months from 2012 to 2014. We employed three types of sea-surface wind data from oceanic moored buoys operated by the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC and the Tropical Atmospheric Ocean project (TAO, the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF reanalysis data (ERA-Interim, and the advanced scatterometer (ASCAT to calculate the error statistics including mean bias, root mean square error (RMSE, and standard deviation. In addition, the rain effects on the retrieval winds were investigated using collocated Climate Prediction Center morphing method (CMORPH precipitation data. All data were collocated with the HY-2A scatterometer wind data for comparison. The quality performances of the HY-2A NRT wind vectors data (especially the wind speeds were satisfactory throughout the service period. The RMSEs of the HY-2A wind speeds relative to the NDBC, TAO, ERA-Interim, and ASCAT data were 1.94, 1.73, 2.25, and 1.62 m·s−1, respectively. The corresponding RMSEs of the wind direction were 46.63°, 43.11°, 39.93°, and 47.47°, respectively. The HY-2A scatterometer overestimated low wind speeds, especially under rainy conditions. Rain exerted a diminishing effect on the wind speed retrievals with increasing wind speed, but its effect on wind direction was robust at low and moderate wind speeds. Relative to the TAO buoy data, the RMSEs without rain effect were reduced to 1.2 m·s−1 and 39.68° for the wind speed direction, respectively, regardless of wind speed. By investigating the objective laws between rain and the retrieval winds from HY-2A, we could improve the quality of wind retrievals through future studies.

Impacts of the Mesoscale Ocean-Atmosphere Coupling on the Peru-Chile Ocean Dynamics: The Current-Induced Wind Stress Modulation

Science.gov (United States)

Oerder, V.; Colas, F.; Echevin, V.; Masson, S.; Lemarié, F.

2018-02-01

The ocean dynamical responses to the surface current-wind stress interaction at the oceanic mesoscale are investigated in the South-East Pacific using a high-resolution regional ocean-atmosphere coupled model. Two simulations are compared: one includes the surface current in the wind stress computation while the other does not. In the coastal region, absolute wind velocities are different between the two simulations but the wind stress remains very similar. As a consequence, the mean regional oceanic circulation is almost unchanged. On the contrary, the mesoscale activity is strongly reduced when taking into account the effect of the surface current on the wind stress. This is caused by a weakening of the eddy kinetic energy generation near the coast by the wind work and to intensified offshore eddy damping. We show that, above coherent eddies, the current-stress interaction generates eddy damping through Ekman pumping and eddy kinetic energy dissipation through wind work. This alters significantly the coherent eddy vertical structures compared with the control simulation, weakening the temperature and vorticity anomalies and increasing strongly the vertical velocity anomalies associated to eddies.

Short-interval SMS wind vector determinations for a severe local storms area

Science.gov (United States)

Peslen, C. A.

1980-01-01

Short-interval SMS-2 visible digital image data are used to derive wind vectors from cloud tracking on time-lapsed sequences of geosynchronous satellite images. The cloud tracking areas are located in the Central Plains, where on May 6, 1975 hail-producing thunderstorms occurred ahead of a well defined dry line. Cloud tracking is performed on the Goddard Space Flight Center Atmospheric and Oceanographic Information Processing System. Lower tropospheric cumulus tracers are selected with the assistance of a cloud-top height algorithm. Divergence is derived from the cloud motions using a modified Cressman (1959) objective analysis technique which is designed to organize irregularly spaced wind vectors into uniformly gridded wind fields. The results demonstrate the feasibility of using satellite-derived wind vectors and their associated divergence fields in describing the conditions preceding severe local storm development. For this case, an area of convergence appeared ahead of the dry line and coincided with the developing area of severe weather. The magnitude of the maximum convergence varied between -10 to the -5th and -10 to the -14th per sec. The number of satellite-derived wind vectors which were required to describe conditions of the low-level atmosphere was adequate before numerous cumulonimbus cells formed. This technique is limited in areas of advanced convection.

NASA CYGNSS Ocean Wind Observations in the 2017 Atlantic Hurricane Season

Science.gov (United States)

Ruf, C. S.; Balasubramaniam, R.; Mayers, D.; McKague, D. S.

2017-12-01

The CYGNSS constellation of eight satellites was successfully launched on 15 December 2016 into a low inclination (tropical) Earth orbit to measure ocean surface wind speed in the inner core of tropical cyclones with better than 12 hour refresh rates. Each satellite carries a four-channel bi-static radar receiver that measures GPS signals scattered by the ocean, from which ocean surface roughness, near surface wind speed, and air-sea latent heat flux are estimated. The measurements are unique in several respects, most notably in their ability to penetrate through all levels of precipitation, made possible by the low frequency at which GPS operates, and in the frequent sampling of tropical cyclone intensification, made possible by the large number of satellites. Level 2 science data products have been developed for near surface (10 m referenced) ocean wind speed, ocean surface roughness (mean square slope) and latent heat flux. Level 3 gridded versions of the L2 products have also been developed. A set of Level 4 products have also been developed specifically for direct tropical cyclone overpasses. These include the storm intensity (peak sustained winds) and size (radius of maximum winds), its extent (34, 50 and 64 knot wind radii), and its integrated kinetic energy. Results of measurements made during the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season, including frequent overpasses of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, will be presented.

Potential of Future Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (HIRAD) Ocean Surface Wind Observations for Determining Tropical Storm Vortex Intensity and Structure

Science.gov (United States)

Atlas, Robert; Bailey, M. C.; Black, Peter; James, Mark; Johnson, James; Jones, Linwood; Miller, Timothy; Ruf, Christopher; Uhlhorn, Eric

2008-01-01

The Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (HIRAD) is an innovative technology development, which offers the potential of new and unique remotely sensed observations of both extreme oceanic wind events and strong precipitation from either UAS or satellite platforms. It is based on the airborne Stepped Frequency Microwave Radiometer (SFMR), which is a proven aircraft remote sensing technique for observing tropical cyclone ocean surface wind speeds and rain rates, including those of major hurricane intensity. The proposed HIRAD instrument advances beyond the current nadir viewing SFMR to an equivalent wide-swath SFMR imager using passive microwave synthetic thinned aperture radiometer technology. This sensor will operate over 4-7 GHz (C-band frequencies) where the required tropical cyclone remote sensing physics has been validated by both SFMR and WindSat radiometers. HIRAD incorporates a unique, technologically advanced array antenna and several other technologies successfully demonstrated by the NASA's Instrument Incubator Program. A brassboard version of the instrument is complete and has been successfully tested in an anechoic chamber, and development of the aircraft instrument is well underway. HIRAD will be a compact, lightweight, low-power instrument with no moving parts that will produce wide-swath imagery of ocean vector winds and rain during hurricane conditions when existing microwave sensors (radiometers or scatterometers) are hindered. Preliminary studies show that HIRAD will have a significant positive impact on analyses as either a new aircraft or satellite sensor.

Wind characteristics in the North and Baltic Seas from the QuikSCAT satellite

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Karagali, Ioanna; Pena Diaz, Alfredo; Badger, Merete

2014-01-01

The QuikSCAT mission provided valuable daily information on global ocean wind speed and direction from July 1999 until November 2009 for various applications including numerical weather prediction, ocean and atmospheric modelling. One new and important application for wind vector satellite data i...

A Novel Empirical Mode Decomposition With Support Vector Regression for Wind Speed Forecasting.

Science.gov (United States)

Ren, Ye; Suganthan, Ponnuthurai Nagaratnam; Srikanth, Narasimalu

2016-08-01

Wind energy is a clean and an abundant renewable energy source. Accurate wind speed forecasting is essential for power dispatch planning, unit commitment decision, maintenance scheduling, and regulation. However, wind is intermittent and wind speed is difficult to predict. This brief proposes a novel wind speed forecasting method by integrating empirical mode decomposition (EMD) and support vector regression (SVR) methods. The EMD is used to decompose the wind speed time series into several intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) and a residue. Subsequently, a vector combining one historical data from each IMF and the residue is generated to train the SVR. The proposed EMD-SVR model is evaluated with a wind speed data set. The proposed EMD-SVR model outperforms several recently reported methods with respect to accuracy or computational complexity.

Atmospheric Wind Relaxations and the Oceanic Response in the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem

Science.gov (United States)

Fewings, M. R.; Dorman, C. E.; Washburn, L.; Liu, W.

2010-12-01

On the West Coast of North America in summer, episodic relaxation of the upwelling-favorable winds causes warm water to propagate northward from southern to central California, against the prevailing currents [Harms and Winant 1998, Winant et al. 2003, Melton et al. 2009]. Similar wind relaxations are an important characteristic of coastal upwelling ecosystems worldwide. Although these wind relaxations have an important influence on coastal ocean dynamics, no description exists of the regional atmospheric patterns that lead to wind relaxations in southern California, or of the regional ocean response. We use QuikSCAT wind stress, North American Regional Reanalysis atmospheric pressure products, water temperature and velocity from coastal ocean moorings, surface ocean currents from high-frequency radars, and MODIS satellite sea-surface temperature and ocean color images to analyze wind relaxation events and the ocean response. We identify the events based on an empirical index calculated from NDBC buoy winds [Melton et al. 2009]. We describe the regional evolution of the atmosphere from the Gulf of Alaska to Baja California over the few days leading up to wind relaxations, and the coastal ocean temperature, color, and current response off southern and central California. We analyze ~100 wind relaxation events in June-September during the QuikSCAT mission, 1999-2009. Our results indicate south-central California wind relaxations in summer are tied to mid-level atmospheric low-pressure systems that form in the Gulf of Alaska and propagate southeastward over 3-5 days. As the low-pressure systems reach southern California, the atmospheric pressure gradient along the coast weakens, causing the surface wind stress to relax to near zero. The weak wind signal appears first at San Diego and propagates northward. QuikSCAT data indicate the relaxed winds extend over the entire Southern California Bight and up to 200 km offshore of central California. Atmospheric dynamics in

The impact of wind energy turbine piles on ocean dynamics

Science.gov (United States)

Grashorn, Sebastian; Stanev, Emil V.

2016-04-01

The small- and meso-scale ocean response to wind parks has not been investigated in the southern North Sea until now with the help of high-resolution numerical modelling. Obstacles such as e.g. wind turbine piles may influence the ocean current system and produce turbulent kinetic energy which could affect sediment dynamics in the surrounding area. Two setups of the unstructured-grid model SCHISM (Semi-implicit Cross-scale Hydroscience Integrated System Model) have been developed for an idealized channel including a surface piercing cylindrical obstacle representing the pile and a more realistic test case including four exemplary piles. Experiments using a constant flow around the obstacles and a rotating M2 tidal wave are carried out. The resulting current and turbulence patterns are investigated to estimate the influence of the obstacles on the surrounding ocean dynamics. We demonstrate that using an unstructured ocean model provides the opportunity to embed a high-resolution representation of a wind park turbine pile system into a coarser North Sea setup, which is needed in order to perform a seamless investigation of the resulting geophysical processes.

Very-short-term wind power probabilistic forecasts by sparse vector autoregression

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dowell, Jethro; Pinson, Pierre

2016-01-01

A spatio-temporal method for producing very-shortterm parametric probabilistic wind power forecasts at a large number of locations is presented. Smart grids containing tens, or hundreds, of wind generators require skilled very-short-term forecasts to operate effectively, and spatial information...... is highly desirable. In addition, probabilistic forecasts are widely regarded as necessary for optimal power system management as they quantify the uncertainty associated with point forecasts. Here we work within a parametric framework based on the logit-normal distribution and forecast its parameters....... The location parameter for multiple wind farms is modelled as a vector-valued spatiotemporal process, and the scale parameter is tracked by modified exponential smoothing. A state-of-the-art technique for fitting sparse vector autoregressive models is employed to model the location parameter and demonstrates...

Vector control of wind turbine on the basis of the fuzzy selective neural net*

Science.gov (United States)

Engel, E. A.; Kovalev, I. V.; Engel, N. E.

2016-04-01

An article describes vector control of wind turbine based on fuzzy selective neural net. Based on the wind turbine system’s state, the fuzzy selective neural net tracks an maximum power point under random perturbations. Numerical simulations are accomplished to clarify the applicability and advantages of the proposed vector wind turbine’s control on the basis of the fuzzy selective neuronet. The simulation results show that the proposed intelligent control of wind turbine achieves real-time control speed and competitive performance, as compared to a classical control model with PID controllers based on traditional maximum torque control strategy.

Gridded Calibration of Ensemble Wind Vector Forecasts Using Ensemble Model Output Statistics

Science.gov (United States)

Lazarus, S. M.; Holman, B. P.; Splitt, M. E.

2017-12-01

A computationally efficient method is developed that performs gridded post processing of ensemble wind vector forecasts. An expansive set of idealized WRF model simulations are generated to provide physically consistent high resolution winds over a coastal domain characterized by an intricate land / water mask. Ensemble model output statistics (EMOS) is used to calibrate the ensemble wind vector forecasts at observation locations. The local EMOS predictive parameters (mean and variance) are then spread throughout the grid utilizing flow-dependent statistical relationships extracted from the downscaled WRF winds. Using data withdrawal and 28 east central Florida stations, the method is applied to one year of 24 h wind forecasts from the Global Ensemble Forecast System (GEFS). Compared to the raw GEFS, the approach improves both the deterministic and probabilistic forecast skill. Analysis of multivariate rank histograms indicate the post processed forecasts are calibrated. Two downscaling case studies are presented, a quiescent easterly flow event and a frontal passage. Strengths and weaknesses of the approach are presented and discussed.

Indian Ocean surface winds from NCMRWF analysis as compared

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

The quality of the surface wind analysis at the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (NCMRWF), New Delhi over the tropical Indian Ocean and its improvement in 2001 are examined by comparing it with in situ buoy measurements and satellite derived surface winds from NASA QuikSCAT satellite (QSCT) ...

On the Decrease of the Oceanic Drag Coefficient in High Winds

Science.gov (United States)

Donelan, Mark A.

2018-02-01

The sheltering coefficient - prefixing Jeffreys' concept of the exponential wave growth rate at a gas-liquid interface - is shown to be Reynolds number dependent from laboratory measurements of waves and Reynolds stresses. There are two turbulent flow regimes: wind speed range of 2.5 to 30 m/s where the drag coefficients increase with wind speed, and wind speed range of 30 to 50 m/s where sheltering/drag coefficients decrease/saturate with wind speed. By comparing model calculations of drag coefficients - using a fixed sheltering coefficient - with ocean observations over a wind speed range of 1 to 50 m/s a similar Reynolds number dependence of the oceanic sheltering coefficient is revealed. In consequence the drag coefficient is a function of Reynolds number and wave age, and not just wind speed as frequently assumed. The resulting decreasing drag coefficient above 30 m/s is shown to be critical in explaining the rapid intensification so prominent in the climatology of Atlantic hurricanes. The Reynolds number dependence of the sheltering coefficient, when employed in coupled models, should lead to significant improvements in the prediction of intensification and decay of tropical cyclones. A calculation of curvature at the wave crest suggests that at wind speeds above 56.15 m/s all waves-breaking or not-induce steady flow separation leading to a minimum in the drag coefficient. This is further evidence of the veracity of the observations of the oceanic drag coefficient at high winds.

Geophysical potential for wind energy over the open oceans.

Science.gov (United States)

Possner, Anna; Caldeira, Ken

2017-10-24

Wind turbines continuously remove kinetic energy from the lower troposphere, thereby reducing the wind speed near hub height. The rate of electricity generation in large wind farms containing multiple wind arrays is, therefore, constrained by the rate of kinetic energy replenishment from the atmosphere above. In recent years, a growing body of research argues that the rate of generated power is limited to around 1.5 W m -2 within large wind farms. However, in this study, we show that considerably higher power generation rates may be sustainable over some open ocean areas. In particular, the North Atlantic is identified as a region where the downward transport of kinetic energy may sustain extraction rates of 6 W m -2 and above over large areas in the annual mean. Furthermore, our results indicate that the surface heat flux from the oceans to the atmosphere may play an important role in creating regions where sustained high rates of downward transport of kinetic energy and thus, high rates of kinetic energy extraction may be geophysical possible. While no commercial-scale deep water wind farms yet exist, our results suggest that such technologies, if they became technically and economically feasible, could potentially provide civilization-scale power.

Interhemispheric gradient of atmospheric radiocarbon reveals natural variability of Southern Ocean winds

Science.gov (United States)

Rodgers, K. B.; Mikaloff-Fletcher, S. E.; Bianchi, D.; Beaulieu, C.; Galbraith, E. D.; Gnanadesikan, A.; Hogg, A. G.; Iudicone, D.; Lintner, B. R.; Naegler, T.; Reimer, P. J.; Sarmiento, J. L.; Slater, R. D.

2011-10-01

Tree ring Δ14C data (Reimer et al., 2004; McCormac et al., 2004) indicate that atmospheric Δ14C varied on multi-decadal to centennial timescales, in both hemispheres, over the period between AD 950 and 1830. The Northern and Southern Hemispheric Δ14C records display similar variability, but from the data alone is it not clear whether these variations are driven by the production of 14C in the stratosphere (Stuiver and Quay, 1980) or by perturbations to exchanges between carbon reservoirs (Siegenthaler et al., 1980). As the sea-air flux of 14CO2 has a clear maximum in the open ocean regions of the Southern Ocean, relatively modest perturbations to the winds over this region drive significant perturbations to the interhemispheric gradient. In this study, model simulations are used to show that Southern Ocean winds are likely a main driver of the observed variability in the interhemispheric gradient over AD 950-1830, and further, that this variability may be larger than the Southern Ocean wind trends that have been reported for recent decades (notably 1980-2004). This interpretation also implies that there may have been a significant weakening of the winds over the Southern Ocean within a few decades of AD 1375, associated with the transition between the Medieval Climate Anomaly and the Little Ice Age. The driving forces that could have produced such a shift in the winds at the Medieval Climate Anomaly to Little Ice Age transition remain unknown. Our process-focused suite of perturbation experiments with models raises the possibility that the current generation of coupled climate and earth system models may underestimate the natural background multi-decadal- to centennial-timescale variations in the winds over the Southern Ocean.

Interhemispheric gradient of atmospheric radiocarbon reveals natural variability of Southern Ocean winds

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

K. B. Rodgers

2011-10-01

Full Text Available Tree ring Δ¹⁴C data (Reimer et al., 2004; McCormac et al., 2004 indicate that atmospheric Δ¹⁴C varied on multi-decadal to centennial timescales, in both hemispheres, over the period between AD 950 and 1830. The Northern and Southern Hemispheric Δ¹⁴C records display similar variability, but from the data alone is it not clear whether these variations are driven by the production of ¹⁴C in the stratosphere (Stuiver and Quay, 1980 or by perturbations to exchanges between carbon reservoirs (Siegenthaler et al., 1980. As the sea-air flux of ¹⁴CO₂ has a clear maximum in the open ocean regions of the Southern Ocean, relatively modest perturbations to the winds over this region drive significant perturbations to the interhemispheric gradient. In this study, model simulations are used to show that Southern Ocean winds are likely a main driver of the observed variability in the interhemispheric gradient over AD 950–1830, and further, that this variability may be larger than the Southern Ocean wind trends that have been reported for recent decades (notably 1980–2004. This interpretation also implies that there may have been a significant weakening of the winds over the Southern Ocean within a few decades of AD 1375, associated with the transition between the Medieval Climate Anomaly and the Little Ice Age. The driving forces that could have produced such a shift in the winds at the Medieval Climate Anomaly to Little Ice Age transition remain unknown. Our process-focused suite of perturbation experiments with models raises the possibility that the current generation of coupled climate and earth system models may underestimate the natural background multi-decadal- to centennial-timescale variations in the winds over the Southern Ocean.

Northerly surface winds over the eastern North Pacific Ocean in spring and summer

Science.gov (United States)

Taylor, S.V.; Cayan, D.R.; Graham, N.E.; Georgakakos, K.P.

2008-01-01

Persistent spring and summer northerly surface winds are the defining climatological feature of the western coast of North America, especially south of the Oregon coast. Northerly surface winds are important for upwelling and a vast array of other biological, oceanic, and atmospheric processes. Intermittence in northerly coastal surface wind is characterized and wind events are quantitatively defined using coastal buoy data south of Cape Mendocino on the northern California coast. The defined wind events are then used as a basis for composites in order to explain the spatial evolution of various atmospheric and oceanic processes. Wind events involve large-scale changes in the three-dimensional atmospheric circulation including the eastern North Pacific subtropical anticyclone and southeast trade winds. Composites of QSCAT satellite scatterometer wind estimates from 1999 to 2005 based on a single coastal buoy indicate that wind events typically last 72-96 h and result in anomalies in surface wind and Ekman pumping that extend over 1000 kin from the west coast of North America. It may be useful to consider ocean circulation and dependent ecosystem dynamics and the distribution of temperature, moisture, and aerosols in the atmospheric boundary layer in the context of wind events defined herein. Copyright 2008 by the American Geophysical Union.

Estimation of the wind turbine yaw error by support vector machines

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sheibat-Othman, Nida; Othman, Sami; Tayari, Raoaa

2015-01-01

Wind turbine yaw error information is of high importance in controlling wind turbine power and structural load. Normally used wind vanes are imprecise. In this work, the estimation of yaw error in wind turbines is studied using support vector machines for regression (SVR). As the methodology...... is data-based, simulated data from a high fidelity aero-elastic model is used for learning. The model simulates a variable speed horizontal-axis wind turbine composed of three blades and a full converter. Both partial load (blade angles fixed at 0 deg) and full load zones (active pitch actuators...

Improving model biases in an ESM with an isopycnic ocean component by accounting for wind work on oceanic near-inertial motions.

Science.gov (United States)

de Wet, P. D.; Bentsen, M.; Bethke, I.

2016-02-01

It is well-known that, when comparing climatological parameters such as ocean temperature and salinity to the output of an Earth System Model (ESM), the model exhibits biases. In ESMs with an isopycnic ocean component, such as NorESM, insufficient vertical mixing is thought to be one of the causes of such differences between observational and model data. However, enhancing the vertical mixing of the model's ocean component not only requires increasing the energy input, but also sound physical reasoning for doing so. Various authors have shown that the action of atmospheric winds on the ocean's surface is a major source of energy input into the upper ocean. However, due to model and computational constraints, oceanic processes linked to surface winds are incompletely accounted for. Consequently, despite significantly contributing to the energy required to maintain ocean stratification, most ESMs do not directly make provision for this energy. In this study we investigate the implementation of a routine in which the energy from work done on oceanic near-inertial motions is calculated in an offline slab model. The slab model, which has been well-documented in the literature, runs parallel to but independently from the ESM's ocean component. It receives wind fields with a frequency higher than that of the coupling frequency, allowing it to capture the fluctuations in the winds on shorter time scales. The additional energy calculated thus is then passed to the ocean component, avoiding the need for increased coupling between the components of the ESM. Results show localised reduction in, amongst others, the salinity and temperature biases of NorESM, confirming model sensitivity to wind-forcing and points to the need for better representation of surface processes in ESMs.

Alignment of stress, mean wind, and vertical gradient of the velocity vector

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Berg, Jacob; Mann, Jakob; Patton, E.G.

2012-01-01

In many applications in the atmospheric surface layer the turbulent-viscosity hypothesis is applied, i.e. the stress vector can be described through the vertical gradient of velocity. In the atmospheric surface layer, where the Coriolis force and baroclinic effects are considered negligible......, this is supposedly a good approximation. High resolution large-eddy simulation (LES) data show that it is indeed the case. Through analysis of WindCube lidar measurements accompanied by sonic measurements we show that this is, on the other hand, rarely the case in the real atmosphere. This might indicate that large...... of atmospheric boundary layer modeling. The measurements are from the Danish wind turbine test sites at Høvsøre. With theWindCube lidar we are able to reach heights of 250 meters and hence capture the entire atmospheric surface layer both in terms of wind speed and the direction of the mean stress vector....

Atmospheric radiocarbon as a Southern Ocean wind proxy over the last 1000 years

Science.gov (United States)

Rodgers, K. B.; Mikaloff Fletcher, S.; Galbraith, E.; Sarmiento, J. L.; Gnanadesikan, A.; Slater, R. D.; Naegler, T.

2009-04-01

Measurements of radiocarbon in tree rings over the last 1000 years indicate that there was a pre-industrial latitudinal gradient of atmospheric radiocarbon of 3.9-4.5 per mail and that this gradient had temporal variability of order 6 per mil. Here we test the idea that the mean gradient as well as variability in he gradient is dominated by the strength of the winds over the Southern Ocean. This is done using an ocean model and an atmospheric transport model. The ocean model is used to derive fluxes of 12CO2 and 14CO2 at the sea surface, and these fluxes are used as a lower boundary condition for the transport model. For the mean state, strong winds in the Southern Ocean drive significant upwelling of radiocarbon-depleted Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW), leading to a net flux of 14CO2 relative to 12CO2 into the ocean. This serves to maintain a hemispheric gradient in pre-anthropogenic atmospheric delta-c14. For perturbations, increased/decreased Southern Ocean winds drive increased/decreased uptake of 14CO2 relative to 12CO2, thus increasing/decreasing the hemispheric gradient in atmospheric delta-c14. The tree ring data is interpreted to reveal a decrease in the strength of the Southern Ocean winds at the transition between the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period.

Response of Ocean Circulation to Different Wind Forcing in Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands

Science.gov (United States)

Solano, Miguel; Garcia, Edgardo; Leonardi, Stafano; Canals, Miguel; Capella, Jorge

2013-11-01

The response of the ocean circulation to various wind forcing products has been studied using the Regional Ocean Modeling System. The computational domain includes the main islands of Puerto Rico, Saint John and Saint Thomas, located on the continental shelf dividing the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Data for wind forcing is provided by an anemometer located in a moored buoy, the Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS) model and the National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD). Hindcast simulations have been validated using hydrographic data at different locations in the area of study. Three cases are compared to quantify the impact of high resolution wind forcing on the ocean circulation and the vertical structure of salinity, temperature and velocity. In the first case a constant wind velocity field is used to force the model as measured by an anemometer on top of a buoy. In the second case, a forcing field provided by the Navy's COAMPS model is used and in the third case, winds are taken from NDFD in collaboration with the National Centers for Environmental Prediction. Validated results of ocean currents against data from Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers at different locations show better agreement using high resolution wind data as expected. Thanks to CariCOOS and NOAA.

Satellite Remote Sensing of Ocean Winds, Surface Waves and Surface Currents during the Hurricanes

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, G.; Perrie, W. A.; Liu, G.; Zhang, L.

2017-12-01

Hurricanes over the ocean have been observed by spaceborne aperture radar (SAR) since the first SAR images were available in 1978. SAR has high spatial resolution (about 1 km), relatively large coverage and capability for observations during almost all-weather, day-and-night conditions. In this study, seven C-band RADARSAT-2 dual-polarized (VV and VH) ScanSAR wide images from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) Hurricane Watch Program in 2017 are collected over five hurricanes: Harvey, Irma, Maria, Nate, and Ophelia. We retrieve the ocean winds by applying our C-band Cross-Polarization Coupled-Parameters Ocean (C-3PO) wind retrieval model [Zhang et al., 2017, IEEE TGRS] to the SAR images. Ocean waves are estimated by applying a relationship based on the fetch- and duration-limited nature of wave growth inside hurricanes [Hwang et al., 2016; 2017, J. Phys. Ocean.]. We estimate the ocean surface currents using the Doppler Shift extracted from VV-polarized SAR images [Kang et al., 2016, IEEE TGRS]. C-3PO model is based on theoretical analysis of ocean surface waves and SAR microwave backscatter. Based on the retrieved ocean winds, we estimate the hurricane center locations, maxima wind speeds, and radii of the five hurricanes by adopting the SHEW model (Symmetric Hurricane Estimates for Wind) by Zhang et al. [2017, IEEE TGRS]. Thus, we investigate possible relations between hurricane structures and intensities, and especially some possible effects of the asymmetrical characteristics on changes in the hurricane intensities, such as the eyewall replacement cycle. The three SAR images of Ophelia include the north coast of Ireland and east coast of Scotland allowing study of ocean surface currents respond to the hurricane. A system of methods capable of observing marine winds, surface waves, and surface currents from satellites is of value, even if these data are only available in near real-time or from SAR-related satellite images. Insight into high resolution ocean winds

Geophysical Potential for Wind Energy over the Open Oceans

Science.gov (United States)

Possner, A.; Caldeira, K.

2017-12-01

Wind turbines continuously remove kinetic energy from the lower troposphere thereby reducing the wind speed near hub height. The rate of electricity generation in large wind farms containing multiple wind arrays is therefore constrained by the rate of kinetic energy replenishment from the atmosphere above. In particular, this study focuses on the maximum sustained transport of kinetic energy through the troposphere to the lowest hundreds of meters above the surface. In recent years, a growing body of research argues that the rate of generated power is limited to around 1.5 Wm-2 within large wind farms. However, in this study we demonstrate that considerably higher power generation rates may be sustainable over some open ocean areas in giant wind farms. We find that in the North Atlantic maximum extraction rates of up to 6.7 Wm-2 may be sustained by the atmosphere in the annual mean over giant wind farm areas approaching the size of Greenland. In contrast, only a third of this rate is sustained on land for areas of equivalent size. Our simulations indicate a fundamental difference in response of the troposphere and its vertical kinetic energy flux to giant near-surface wind farms. We find that the surface heat flux from the oceans to the atmosphere may play an important role in creating regions where large sustained rates of downward transport of kinetic energy and thus rates of kinetic energy extraction may be geophysically possible. While no commercial-scale deep-water wind turbines yet exist, our results suggest that such technologies, if they became technically and economically feasible, could potentially provide civilization-scale power.

Ocean Mixed Layer Response to Gap Wind Scenarios

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Konstantinou, Nikolaos

2006-01-01

This study focuses on understanding the oceanic response to gap outflow and the air-sea interaction processes during the gap wind event between 26 and 28 February 2004 over the Gulf of Tehuantepec, Mexico. The U.S...

Surface wind mixing in the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS)

Science.gov (United States)

Robertson, Robin; Hartlipp, Paul

2017-12-01

Mixing at the ocean surface is key for atmosphere-ocean interactions and the distribution of heat, energy, and gases in the upper ocean. Winds are the primary force for surface mixing. To properly simulate upper ocean dynamics and the flux of these quantities within the upper ocean, models must reproduce mixing in the upper ocean. To evaluate the performance of the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) in replicating the surface mixing, the results of four different vertical mixing parameterizations were compared against observations, using the surface mixed layer depth, the temperature fields, and observed diffusivities for comparisons. The vertical mixing parameterizations investigated were Mellor- Yamada 2.5 level turbulent closure (MY), Large- McWilliams- Doney Kpp (LMD), Nakanishi- Niino (NN), and the generic length scale (GLS) schemes. This was done for one temperate site in deep water in the Eastern Pacific and three shallow water sites in the Baltic Sea. The model reproduced the surface mixed layer depth reasonably well for all sites; however, the temperature fields were reproduced well for the deep site, but not for the shallow Baltic Sea sites. In the Baltic Sea, the models overmixed the water column after a few days. Vertical temperature diffusivities were higher than those observed and did not show the temporal fluctuations present in the observations. The best performance was by NN and MY; however, MY became unstable in two of the shallow simulations with high winds. The performance of GLS nearly as good as NN and MY. LMD had the poorest performance as it generated temperature diffusivities that were too high and induced too much mixing. Further observational comparisons are needed to evaluate the effects of different stratification and wind conditions and the limitations on the vertical mixing parameterizations.

Ka-band Doppler Scatterometer for Measurements of Ocean Vector Winds and Surface Currents

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Ocean surface currents impact heat transport, surface momentum and gas fluxes, ocean productivity and marine biological communities. Ocean currents also have social...

Novel multi-beam radiometers for accurate ocean surveillance

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Cappellin, C.; Pontoppidan, K.; Nielsen, P. H.

2014-01-01

Novel antenna architectures for real aperture multi-beam radiometers providing high resolution and high sensitivity for accurate sea surface temperature (SST) and ocean vector wind (OVW) measurements are investigated. On the basis of the radiometer requirements set for future SST/OVW missions...

The relationship between the statistics of open ocean currents and the temporal correlations of the wind stress

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bel, Golan; Ashkenazy, Yosef

2013-01-01

We study the statistics of wind-driven open ocean currents. Using the Ekman layer model for the integrated currents, we investigate analytically and numerically the relationship between the wind-stress distribution and its temporal correlations and the statistics of the open ocean currents. We found that temporally long-range correlated winds result in currents whose statistics is proportional to the wind-stress statistics. On the other hand, short-range correlated winds lead to Gaussian distributions of the current components, regardless of the stationary distribution of the winds, and therefore to a Rayleigh distribution of the current amplitude, if the wind stress is isotropic. We found that the second moment of the current speed exhibits a maximum as a function of the correlation time of the wind stress for a non-zero Coriolis parameter. The results were validated using an oceanic general circulation model. (paper)

Empirical wind retrieval model based on SAR spectrum measurements

Science.gov (United States)

Panfilova, Maria; Karaev, Vladimir; Balandina, Galina; Kanevsky, Mikhail; Portabella, Marcos; Stoffelen, Ad

The present paper considers polarimetric SAR wind vector applications. Remote-sensing measurements of the near-surface wind over the ocean are of great importance for the understanding of atmosphere-ocean interaction. In recent years investigations for wind vector retrieval using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data have been performed. In contrast with scatterometers, a SAR has a finer spatial resolution that makes it a more suitable microwave instrument to explore wind conditions in the marginal ice zones, coastal regions and lakes. The wind speed retrieval procedure from scatterometer data matches the measured radar backscattering signal with the geophysical model function (GMF). The GMF determines the radar cross section dependence on the wind speed and direction with respect to the azimuthal angle of the radar beam. Scatterometers provide information on wind speed and direction simultaneously due to the fact that each wind vector cell (WVC) is observed at several azimuth angles. However, SAR is not designed to be used as a high resolution scatterometer. In this case, each WVC is observed at only one single azimuth angle. That is why for wind vector determination additional information such as wind streak orientation over the sea surface is required. It is shown that the wind vector can be obtained using polarimetric SAR without additional information. The main idea is to analyze the spectrum of a homogeneous SAR image area instead of the backscattering normalized radar cross section. Preliminary numerical simulations revealed that SAR image spectral maxima positions depend on the wind vector. Thus the following method for wind speed retrieval is proposed. In the first stage of the algorithm, the SAR spectrum maxima are determined. This procedure is carried out to estimate the wind speed and direction with ambiguities separated by 180 degrees due to the SAR spectrum symmetry. The second stage of the algorithm allows us to select the correct wind direction

Variability of the reflectance coefficient of skylight from the ocean surface and its implications to ocean color.

Science.gov (United States)

Gilerson, Alexander; Carrizo, Carlos; Foster, Robert; Harmel, Tristan

2018-04-16

The value and spectral dependence of the reflectance coefficient (ρ) of skylight from wind-roughened ocean surfaces is critical for determining accurate water leaving radiance and remote sensing reflectances from shipborne, AERONET-Ocean Color and satellite observations. Using a vector radiative transfer code, spectra of the reflectance coefficient and corresponding radiances near the ocean surface and at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) are simulated for a broad range of parameters including flat and windy ocean surfaces with wind speeds up to 15 m/s, aerosol optical thicknesses of 0-1 at 440nm, wavelengths of 400-900 nm, and variable Sun and viewing zenith angles. Results revealed a profound impact of the aerosol load and type on the spectral values of ρ. Such impacts, not included yet in standard processing, may produce significant inaccuracies in the reflectance spectra retrieved from above-water radiometry and satellite observations. Implications for satellite cal/val activities as well as potential changes in measurement and data processing schemes are discussed.

Statistical downscaling of IPCC sea surface wind and wind energy predictions for U.S. east coastal ocean, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea

Science.gov (United States)

Yao, Zhigang; Xue, Zuo; He, Ruoying; Bao, Xianwen; Song, Jun

2016-08-01

A multivariate statistical downscaling method is developed to produce regional, high-resolution, coastal surface wind fields based on the IPCC global model predictions for the U.S. east coastal ocean, the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), and the Caribbean Sea. The statistical relationship is built upon linear regressions between the empirical orthogonal function (EOF) spaces of a cross- calibrated, multi-platform, multi-instrument ocean surface wind velocity dataset (predictand) and the global NCEP wind reanalysis (predictor) over a 10 year period from 2000 to 2009. The statistical relationship is validated before applications and its effectiveness is confirmed by the good agreement between downscaled wind fields based on the NCEP reanalysis and in-situ surface wind measured at 16 National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) buoys in the U.S. east coastal ocean and the GOM during 1992-1999. The predictand-predictor relationship is applied to IPCC GFDL model output (2.0°×2.5°) of downscaled coastal wind at 0.25°×0.25° resolution. The temporal and spatial variability of future predicted wind speeds and wind energy potential over the study region are further quantified. It is shown that wind speed and power would significantly be reduced in the high CO2 climate scenario offshore of the mid-Atlantic and northeast U.S., with the speed falling to one quarter of its original value.

Phase spectral composition of wind generated ocean surface waves

Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)

Varkey, M.J.

A study of the composition of the phase spectra of wind generated ocean surface waves is carried out using wave records collected employing a ship borne wave recorder. It is found that the raw phase spectral estimates could be fitted by the Uniform...

Conflict Resolution for Wind-Optimal Aircraft Trajectories in North Atlantic Oceanic Airspace with Wind Uncertainties

Science.gov (United States)

Rodionova, Olga; Sridhar, Banavar; Ng, Hok K.

2016-01-01

Air traffic in the North Atlantic oceanic airspace (NAT) experiences very strong winds caused by jet streams. Flying wind-optimal trajectories increases individual flight efficiency, which is advantageous when operating in the NAT. However, as the NAT is highly congested during peak hours, a large number of potential conflicts between flights are detected for the sets of wind-optimal trajectories. Conflict resolution performed at the strategic level of flight planning can significantly reduce the airspace congestion. However, being completed far in advance, strategic planning can only use predicted environmental conditions that may significantly differ from the real conditions experienced further by aircraft. The forecast uncertainties result in uncertainties in conflict prediction, and thus, conflict resolution becomes less efficient. This work considers wind uncertainties in order to improve the robustness of conflict resolution in the NAT. First, the influence of wind uncertainties on conflict prediction is investigated. Then, conflict resolution methods accounting for wind uncertainties are proposed.

Wind energy input into the upper ocean over a lengthening open water season

Science.gov (United States)

Mahoney, A. R.; Rolph, R.; Walsh, J. E.

2017-12-01

Wind energy input into the ocean has important consequences for upper ocean mixing, heat and gas exchange, and air-sea momentum transfer. In the Arctic, the open water season is increasing and extending further into the fall storm season, allowing for more wind energy input into the water column. The rate at which the delayed freeze-up timing extends into fall storm season is an important metric to evaluate because the expanding overlap between the open water period and storm season could contribute a significant amount of wind energy into the water column in a relatively short period of time. We have shown that time-integrated wind speeds over open water in the Chukchi Sea and southern Beaufort region have increased since 1979 through 2014. An integrated wind energy input value is calculated for each year in this domain over the open water season, as well as for periods over partial concentrations of ice cover. Spatial variation of this integrated wind energy is shown along the Alaskan coastline, which can have implications for different rates of coastal erosion. Spatial correlation between average wind speed over open water and open water season length from 1979-2014 show positive values in the southern Beaufort, but negative values in the northern Chukchi. This suggests possible differences in the role of the ocean on open water season length depending on region. We speculate that the warm Pacific water outflow plays a more dominant role in extending the open water season length in the northern Chukchi when compared to the southern Beaufort, and might help explain why we can show there is a relatively longer open water season length there. The negative and positive correlations in wind speeds over open water and open water season length might also be explained by oceanic changes tending to operate on longer timescales than the atmosphere. Seasonal timescales of wind events such as regional differences in overlap of the extended open water season due to regional

Short-term wind speed prediction using an unscented Kalman filter based state-space support vector regression approach

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chen, Kuilin; Yu, Jie

2014-01-01

Highlights: • A novel hybrid modeling method is proposed for short-term wind speed forecasting. • Support vector regression model is constructed to formulate nonlinear state-space framework. • Unscented Kalman filter is adopted to recursively update states under random uncertainty. • The new SVR–UKF approach is compared to several conventional methods for short-term wind speed prediction. • The proposed method demonstrates higher prediction accuracy and reliability. - Abstract: Accurate wind speed forecasting is becoming increasingly important to improve and optimize renewable wind power generation. Particularly, reliable short-term wind speed prediction can enable model predictive control of wind turbines and real-time optimization of wind farm operation. However, this task remains challenging due to the strong stochastic nature and dynamic uncertainty of wind speed. In this study, unscented Kalman filter (UKF) is integrated with support vector regression (SVR) based state-space model in order to precisely update the short-term estimation of wind speed sequence. In the proposed SVR–UKF approach, support vector regression is first employed to formulate a nonlinear state-space model and then unscented Kalman filter is adopted to perform dynamic state estimation recursively on wind sequence with stochastic uncertainty. The novel SVR–UKF method is compared with artificial neural networks (ANNs), SVR, autoregressive (AR) and autoregressive integrated with Kalman filter (AR-Kalman) approaches for predicting short-term wind speed sequences collected from three sites in Massachusetts, USA. The forecasting results indicate that the proposed method has much better performance in both one-step-ahead and multi-step-ahead wind speed predictions than the other approaches across all the locations

A Novel Integrated Algorithm for Wind Vector Retrieval from Conically Scanning Scatterometers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xuetong Xie

2013-11-01

Full Text Available Due to the lower efficiency and the larger wind direction error of traditional algorithms, a novel integrated wind retrieval algorithm is proposed for conically scanning scatterometers. The proposed algorithm has the dual advantages of less computational cost and higher wind direction retrieval accuracy by integrating the wind speed standard deviation (WSSD algorithm and the wind direction interval retrieval (DIR algorithm. It adopts wind speed standard deviation as a criterion for searching possible wind vector solutions and retrieving a potential wind direction interval based on the change rate of the wind speed standard deviation. Moreover, a modified three-step ambiguity removal method is designed to let more wind directions be selected in the process of nudging and filtering. The performance of the new algorithm is illustrated by retrieval experiments using 300 orbits of SeaWinds/QuikSCAT L2A data (backscatter coefficients at 25 km resolution and co-located buoy data. Experimental results indicate that the new algorithm can evidently enhance the wind direction retrieval accuracy, especially in the nadir region. In comparison with the SeaWinds L2B Version 2 25 km selected wind product (retrieved wind fields, an improvement of 5.1° in wind direction retrieval can be made by the new algorithm for that region.

Wavelet transform-vector quantization compression of supercomputer ocean model simulation output

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bradley, J N; Brislawn, C M

1992-11-12

We describe a new procedure for efficient compression of digital information for storage and transmission purposes. The algorithm involves a discrete wavelet transform subband decomposition of the data set, followed by vector quantization of the wavelet transform coefficients using application-specific vector quantizers. The new vector quantizer design procedure optimizes the assignment of both memory resources and vector dimensions to the transform subbands by minimizing an exponential rate-distortion functional subject to constraints on both overall bit-rate and encoder complexity. The wavelet-vector quantization method, which originates in digital image compression. is applicable to the compression of other multidimensional data sets possessing some degree of smoothness. In this paper we discuss the use of this technique for compressing the output of supercomputer simulations of global climate models. The data presented here comes from Semtner-Chervin global ocean models run at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and at the Los Alamos Advanced Computing Laboratory.

Aspects of the determination of winds by means of scatterometry and of the utilization of vector wind data for meteorological forecasts

Science.gov (United States)

Pierson, W. J., Jr.; Sylvester, W. B.; Donelan, M. A.

1986-01-01

The present paper provides a description of four aspects of scatterometer winds and their uses. The theory of wave generation by the wind is considered along with an analysis of the properties of superobservations, and studies of intermittent versus continuous data assimilation methods for numerical weather predictions which use remotely sensed data. A comparison of the sum of squares versus the maximum likelihood method for recovering the vector winds is also conducted. Questions regarding wind speed, friction velocity, or normal stress are discussed and synoptic scale fields from Seasat-SASS data are examined.

Analysis of vector wind change with respect to time for Vandenberg Air Force Base, California

Science.gov (United States)

Adelfang, S. I.

1978-01-01

A statistical analysis of the temporal variability of wind vectors at 1 km altitude intervals from 0 to 27 km altitude taken from a 10-year data sample of twice-daily rawinsode wind measurements over Vandenberg Air Force Base, California is presented.

Origins of wind-driven intraseasonal sea level variations in the North Indian Ocean coastal waveguide

Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)

Suresh, I.; Vialard, J.; Lengaigne, M.; Han, W.; Mc; Durand, F.; Muraleedharan, P.M.

version: Geophys. Res. Lett., vol.40(21); 2013; 5740-5744 Origins of wind-driven intraseasonal sea level variations in the North Indian Ocean coastal waveguide I. Suresh1, J. Vialard2, M. Lengaigne2, W. Han3, J. McCreary4, F. Durand5, P.M. Muraleedharan1... reversing winds. These wind variations drive seasonal equatorial Kelvin and Rossby wave responses. The seasonal equatorial Kelvin waves propagate into the North Indian Ocean (hereafter NIO) as coastal Kelvin waves [McCreary et al., 1993]. As a result...

Magnetosheath for almost-aligned solar wind magnetic field and flow vectors: Wind observations across the dawnside magnetosheath at X = -12 Re

Science.gov (United States)

Farrugia, C. J.; Erkaev, N. V.; Torbert, R. B.; Biernat, H. K.; Gratton, F. T.; Szabo, A.; Kucharek, H.; Matsui, H.; Lin, R. P.; Ogilvie, K. W.; Lepping, R. P.; Smith, C. W.

2010-08-01

While there are many approximations describing the flow of the solar wind past the magnetosphere in the magnetosheath, the case of perfectly aligned (parallel or anti-parallel) interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) and solar wind flow vectors can be treated exactly in a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) approach. In this work we examine a case of nearly-opposed (to within 15°) interplanetary field and flow vectors, which occurred on October 24-25, 2001 during passage of the last interplanetary coronal mass ejection in an ejecta merger. Interplanetary data are from the ACE spacecraft. Simultaneously Wind was crossing the near-Earth (X ˜ -13 Re) geomagnetic tail and subsequently made an approximately 5-hour-long magnetosheath crossing close to the ecliptic plane (Z = -0.7 Re). Geomagnetic activity was returning steadily to quiet, “ground” conditions. We first compare the predictions of the Spreiter and Rizzi theory with the Wind magnetosheath observations and find fair agreement, in particular as regards the proportionality of the magnetic field strength and the product of the plasma density and bulk speed. We then carry out a small-perturbation analysis of the Spreiter and Rizzi solution to account for the small IMF components perpendicular to the flow vector. The resulting expression is compared to the time series of the observations and satisfactory agreement is obtained. We also present and discuss observations in the dawnside boundary layer of pulsed, high-speed (v ˜ 600 km/s) flows exceeding the solar wind flow speeds. We examine various generating mechanisms and suggest that the most likely cause is a wave of frequency 3.2 mHz excited at the inner edge of the boundary layer by the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability.

Improved Offshore Wind Resource Assessment in Global Climate Stabilization Scenarios

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Arent, D.; Sullivan, P.; Heimiller, D.; Lopez, A.; Eurek, K.; Badger, J.; Jorgensen, H. E.; Kelly, M.; Clarke, L.; Luckow, P.

2012-10-01

This paper introduces a technique for digesting geospatial wind-speed data into areally defined -- country-level, in this case -- wind resource supply curves. We combined gridded wind-vector data for ocean areas with bathymetry maps, country exclusive economic zones, wind turbine power curves, and other datasets and relevant parameters to build supply curves that estimate a country's offshore wind resource defined by resource quality, depth, and distance-from-shore. We include a single set of supply curves -- for a particular assumption set -- and study some implications of including it in a global energy model. We also discuss the importance of downscaling gridded wind vector data to capturing the full resource potential, especially over land areas with complex terrain. This paper includes motivation and background for a statistical downscaling methodology to account for terrain effects with a low computational burden. Finally, we use this forum to sketch a framework for building synthetic electric networks to estimate transmission accessibility of renewable resource sites in remote areas.

Investigating the role of wind in generating surface currents over the slope area of the Laptev Sea, Arctic Ocean

Science.gov (United States)

Patteson, R. N.

2017-12-01

Mixing mechanisms of the Arctic Ocean have profound impacts on sea ice, global ocean dynamics, and arctic communities. This project used a two-year long time series of ocean current velocities collected from eight moorings located on the Eurasian basin, as well as ERA-interim wind data, to compare and assess relationships between current and wind velocities at different depths. Determining the strength of these correlations will further scientific understanding of the degree to which wind influences mixing, with implications for heat flux, diffusion, and sea ice changes. Using statistical analysis, I calculated whether a significant relationship between wind velocity and ocean currents existed beginning at the surface level ( 50m) .The final correlation values, ranging from R = 0.11 to R = 0.28, indicated a weak relationship between wind velocity and ocean currents at the surface for all eight mooring sites. The results for the surface depth imply that correlation likely decreases with increasing depths, and thus further testing of deeper depth levels was unnecessary. This finding suggests that there is another dominant factor at play in the ocean; we postulate that topography exerts a significant influence on subsurface mixing. This study highlights the need for further research of the different mechanisms and their importance in influencing the dynamic structure of the ocean.

Westerly Winds and the Southern Ocean CO2 Sink Since the Last Glacial-Interglacial Transition

Science.gov (United States)

Hodgson, D. A.; Saunders, K. M.; Roberts, S. J.; Perren, B.; Butz, C.; Sime, L. C.; Davies, S. J.; Grosjean, M.

2017-12-01

The capacity of the Southern Ocean carbon sink is partly controlled by the Southern Hemisphere westerly winds (SHW) and sea ice. These regulate the upwelling of dissolved carbon-rich deep water to Antarctic surface waters, determine the surface area for air-sea gas exchange and therefore modulate the net uptake of atmospheric CO2. Some models have proposed that strengthened SHW will result in a weakening of the Southern Ocean CO2 sink. If these models are correct, then one would expect that reconstructions of changes in SHW intensity on centennial to millennial timescales would show clear links with Antarctic ice core and Southern Ocean marine geological records of atmospheric CO2, temperature and sea ice. Here, we present a 12,300 year reconstruction of past wind strength based on three independent proxies that track the changing inputs of sea salt aerosols and minerogenic particles into lake sediments on sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island. The proxies are consistent in showing that periods of high wind intensity corresponded with the increase in CO2 across the late Last Glacial-Interglacial Transition and in the last 7,000 years, suggesting that the winds have contributed to the long term outgassing of CO2 from the ocean during these periods.

Microwave Remote Sensing Modeling of Ocean Surface Salinity and Winds Using an Empirical Sea Surface Spectrum

Science.gov (United States)

Yueh, Simon H.

2004-01-01

Active and passive microwave remote sensing techniques have been investigated for the remote sensing of ocean surface wind and salinity. We revised an ocean surface spectrum using the CMOD-5 geophysical model function (GMF) for the European Remote Sensing (ERS) C-band scatterometer and the Ku-band GMF for the NASA SeaWinds scatterometer. The predictions of microwave brightness temperatures from this model agree well with satellite, aircraft and tower-based microwave radiometer data. This suggests that the impact of surface roughness on microwave brightness temperatures and radar scattering coefficients of sea surfaces can be consistently characterized by a roughness spectrum, providing physical basis for using combined active and passive remote sensing techniques for ocean surface wind and salinity remote sensing.

High stability vector-based direct power control for DFIG-based wind turbine

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zhu, Rongwu; Chen, Zhe; Wu, Xiaojie

2015-01-01

This paper proposes an improved vector-based direct power control (DPC) strategy for the doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG)-based wind energy conversion system. Based on the small signal model, the proposed DPC improves the stability of the DFIG, and avoids the DFIG operating in the marginal...

Fault diagnosis of direct-drive wind turbine based on support vector machine

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

An, X L; Jiang, D X; Li, S H; Chen, J

2011-01-01

A fault diagnosis method of direct-drive wind turbine based on support vector machine (SVM) and feature selection is presented. The time-domain feature parameters of main shaft vibration signal in the horizontal and vertical directions are considered in the method. Firstly, in laboratory scale five experiments of direct-drive wind turbine with normal condition, wind wheel mass imbalance fault, wind wheel aerodynamic imbalance fault, yaw fault and blade airfoil change fault are carried out. The features of five experiments are analyzed. Secondly, the sensitive time-domain feature parameters in the horizontal and vertical directions of vibration signal in the five conditions are selected and used as feature samples. By training, the mapping relation between feature parameters and fault types are established in SVM model. Finally, the performance of the proposed method is verified through experimental data. The results show that the proposed method is effective in identifying the fault of wind turbine. It has good classification ability and robustness to diagnose the fault of direct-drive wind turbine.

The Alignment of the Mean Wind and Stress Vectors in the Unstable Surface Layer

Science.gov (United States)

Bernardes, M.; Dias, N. L.

2010-01-01

A significant non-alignment between the mean horizontal wind vector and the stress vector was observed for turbulence measurements both above the water surface of a large lake, and over a land surface (soybean crop). Possible causes for this discrepancy such as flow distortion, averaging times and the procedure used for extracting the turbulent fluctuations (low-pass filtering and filter widths etc.), were dismissed after a detailed analysis. Minimum averaging times always less than 30 min were established by calculating ogives, and error bounds for the turbulent stresses were derived with three different approaches, based on integral time scales (first-crossing and lag-window estimates) and on a bootstrap technique. It was found that the mean absolute value of the angle between the mean wind and stress vectors is highly related to atmospheric stability, with the non-alignment increasing distinctively with increasing instability. Given a coordinate rotation that aligns the mean wind with the x direction, this behaviour can be explained by the growth of the relative error of the u- w component with instability. As a result, under more unstable conditions the u- w and the v- w components become of the same order of magnitude, and the local stress vector gives the impression of being non-aligned with the mean wind vector. The relative error of the v- w component is large enough to make it undistinguishable from zero throughout the range of stabilities. Therefore, the standard assumptions of Monin-Obukhov similarity theory hold: it is fair to assume that the v- w stress component is actually zero, and that the non-alignment is a purely statistical effect. An analysis of the dimensionless budgets of the u- w and the v- w components confirms this interpretation, with both shear and buoyant production of u- w decreasing with increasing instability. In the v- w budget, shear production is zero by definition, while buoyancy displays very low-intensity fluctuations around

Impact of Short Interval SMS Digital Data on Wind Vector Determination for a Severe Local Storms Area

Science.gov (United States)

Peslen, C. A.

1979-01-01

The impact of 5 minute interval SMS-2 visible digital image data in analyzing severe local storms is examined using wind vectors derived from cloud tracking on time lapsed sequence of geosynchronous satellite images. The cloud tracking areas are located in the Central Plains, where on 6 May 1975, hail-producing thunderstorms occurred ahead of a well defined dry line. The results demonstrate that satellite-derived wind vectors and their associated divergence fields complement conventional meteorological analyses in describing the conditions preceding severe local storm development.

Simulation of the Impact of New Ocean Surface Wind Measurements on H*Wind Analyses

Science.gov (United States)

Miller, Timothy; Atlas, Robert; Black, Peter; Chen, Shuyi; Hood, Robbie; Johnson, James; Jones, Linwood; Ruf, Chris; Uhlhorn, Eric

2008-01-01

The H*Wind analysis, a product of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, brings together wind measurements from a variety of observation platforms into an objective analysis of the distribution of surface wind speeds in a tropical cyclone. This product is designed to improve understanding of the extent and strength of the wind field, and to improve the assessment of hurricane intensity. See http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/data sub/wind.html. The Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (HIRAD) is a new passive microwave remote sensor for hurricane observations that is currently under development by NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, NOAA Hurricane Research Division, the University of Central Florida and the University of Michigan. HIRAD is being designed to enhance the current real-time airborne ocean surface winds observation capabilities of NOAA and USAF Weather Squadron hurricane hunter aircraft using the operational airbome Stepped Frequency Microwave Radiometer (SFMR). Unlike SFMR, which measures wind speed and rain rate along the ground track directly beneath the aircraft, HIRAD will provide images of the surface wind and rain field over a wide swath (approximately 3 x the aircraft altitude, or approximately 2 km from space). The instrument is described in a separate paper presented at this conference. The present paper describes a set of Observing System Simulation Experiments (OSSEs) in which measurements from the new instrument as well as those from existing instruments (air, surface, and space-based) are simulated from the output of a numerical model from the University of Miami, and those results are used to construct H*Wind analyses. Evaluations will be presented on the relative impact of HIRAD and other instruments on H*Wind analyses, including the use of HIRAD from 2 aircraft altitudes and from a space-based platform.

Satellite Observations of Imprint of Oceanic Current on Wind Stress by Air-Sea Coupling.

Science.gov (United States)

Renault, Lionel; McWilliams, James C; Masson, Sebastien

2017-12-18

Mesoscale eddies are present everywhere in the ocean and partly determine the mean state of the circulation and ecosystem. The current feedback on the surface wind stress modulates the air-sea transfer of momentum by providing a sink of mesoscale eddy energy as an atmospheric source. Using nine years of satellite measurements of surface stress and geostrophic currents over the global ocean, we confirm that the current-induced surface stress curl is linearly related to the current vorticity. The resulting coupling coefficient between current and surface stress (s τ [N s m -3 ]) is heterogeneous and can be roughly expressed as a linear function of the mean surface wind. s τ expresses the sink of eddy energy induced by the current feedback. This has important implications for air-sea interaction and implies that oceanic mean and mesoscale circulations and their effects on surface-layer ventilation and carbon uptake are better represented in oceanic models that include this feedback.

Plants and ventifacts delineate late Holocene wind vectors in the Coachella Valley, USA

Science.gov (United States)

Griffiths, P.G.; Webb, R.H.; Fisher, M.; Muth, Allan

2009-01-01

Strong westerly winds that emanate from San Gorgonio Pass, the lowest point between Palm Springs and Los Angeles, California, dominate aeolian transport in the Coachella Valley of the western Sonoran Desert. These winds deposit sand in coppice dunes that are critical habitat for several species, including the state and federally listed threatened species Uma inornata, a lizard. Although wind directions are generally defined in this valley, the wind field has complex interactions with local topography and becomes more variable with distance from the pass. Local, dominant wind directions are preserved by growth patterns of Larrea tridentata (creosote bush), a shrub characteristic of the hot North American deserts, and ventifacts. Exceptionally long-lived, Larrea has the potential to preserve wind direction over centuries to millennia, shaped by the abrasive pruning of windward branches and the persistent training of leeward branches. Wind direction preserved in Larrea individuals and clones was mapped at 192 locations. Compared with wind data from three weather stations, Larrea vectors effectively reflect annual prevailing winds. Ventifacts measured at 24 locations record winds 10° more westerly than Larrea and appear to reflect the direction of the most erosive winds. Based on detailed mapping of local wind directions as preserved in Larrea, only the northern half of the Mission-Morongo Creek floodplain is likely to supply sand to protected U. inornata habitat in the Willow Hole ecological reserve.

Response of an ocean general circulation model to wind and ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

The stretched-coordinate ocean general circulation model has been designed to study the observed variability due to wind and thermodynamic forcings. The model domain extends from 60°N to 60°S and cyclically continuous in the longitudinal direction. The horizontal resolution is 5° × 5° and 9 discrete vertical levels.

CubeSat Constellation Cloud Winds(C3Winds) A New Wind Observing System to Study Mesoscale Cloud Dynamics and Processes

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, D. L.; Kelly, M.A.; Yee, J.-H.; Boldt, J.; Demajistre, R.; Reynolds, E. L.; Tripoli, G. J.; Oman, L. D.; Prive, N.; Heidinger, A. K.;

The effects of wind and rainfall on suspended sediment concentration related to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang Xinfeng; Tang Danling; Li Zizhen; Zhang Fengpan

2009-01-01

The effects of rainfall and wind speed on the dynamics of suspended sediment concentration (SSC), during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, were analyzed using spatial statistical models. The results showed a positive effect of wind speed on SSC, and inconsistent effects (positive and negative) of rainfall on SSC. The effects of wind speed and rainfall on SSC weakened immediately around the tsunami, indicating tsunami-caused floods and earthquake-induced shaking may have suddenly disturbed the ocean-atmosphere interaction processes, and thus weakened the effects of wind speed and rainfall on SSC. Wind speed and rainfall increased markedly, and reached their maximum values immediately after the tsunami week. Rainfall at this particular week exceeded twice the average for the same period over the previous 4 years. The tsunami-affected air-sea interactions may have increased both wind speed and rainfall immediately after the tsunami week, which directly lead to the variations in SSC.

Monthly mean wind stress along the coast of the north Indian Ocean

Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)

Shetye, S.R.; Shenoi, S.S.C.; Antony, M.K.; Krishnakumar, V.

Monthly-mean wind stress and its longshore and offshore components have been computed using the bulk aerodynamic method for each of a string of 36 two-degree-latitude by two-degree-longitude squares along the coast of the north Indian Ocean...

Preliminary results on ocean dynamics from Skylab and their implications for future spacecraft

Science.gov (United States)

Hayes, J.; Pierson, W. J.; Cardone, V. J.

1975-01-01

The instrument aboard Skylab designated S193 - a combined passive and active microwave radar system acting as a radiometer, scatterometer, and altimeter - is used to measure the surface vector wind speeds in the planetary boundary layer over the oceans. Preliminary results corroborate the hypothesis that sea surface winds in the planetary boundary layer can be determined from satellite data. Future spacecraft plans for measuring a geoid with an accuracy up to 10 cm are discussed.

Decadal Patterns of Westerly Winds, Temperatures, Ocean Gyre Circulations and Fish Abundance: A Review

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Candace Oviatt

2015-10-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this review is to describe the global scope of the multidecadal climate oscillations that go back at least, through several hundred years. Literature, historic data, satellite data and global circulation model output have been used to provide evidence for the zonal and meridional jet stream patterns. These patterns were predominantly zonal from the 1970s to 1990s and switched since the 1990s to a meridional wind phase, with weakening jet streams forming Rossby waves in the northern and southern hemispheres. A weakened northern jet stream has allowed northerly winds to flow down over the continents in the northern hemisphere during the winter period, causing some harsh winters and slowing anthropogenic climate warming regionally. Wind oscillations impact ocean gyre circulation affecting upwelling strength and pelagic fish abundance with synchronous behavior in sub Arctic gyres during phases of the oscillation and asynchronous behavior in subtropical gyres between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Fine tuning support vector machines for short-term wind speed forecasting

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhou Junyi; Shi Jing; Li Gong

2011-01-01

Research highlights: → A systematic approach to tuning SVM models for wind speed prediction is proposed. → Multiple kernel functions and a wide range of tuning parameters are evaluated, and optimal parameters for each kernel function are obtained. → It is found that the forecasting performance of SVM is closely related to the dynamic characteristics of wind speed. → Under the optimal combination of parameters, different kernels give comparable forecasting accuracy. -- Abstract: Accurate forecasting of wind speed is critical to the effective harvesting of wind energy and the integration of wind power into the existing electric power grid. Least-squares support vector machines (LS-SVM), a powerful technique that is widely applied in a variety of classification and function estimation problems, carries great potential for the application of short-term wind speed forecasting. In this case, tuning the model parameters for optimal forecasting accuracy is a fundamental issue. This paper, for the first time, presents a systematic study on fine tuning of LS-SVM model parameters for one-step ahead wind speed forecasting. Three SVM kernels, namely linear, Gaussian, and polynomial kernels, are implemented. The SVM parameters considered include the training sample size, SVM order, regularization parameter, and kernel parameters. The results show that (1) the performance of LS-SVM is closely related to the dynamic characteristics of wind speed; (2) all parameters investigated greatly affect the performance of LS-SVM models; (3) under the optimal combination of parameters after fine tuning, the three kernels give comparable forecasting accuracy; (4) the performance of linear kernel is worse than the other two kernels when the training sample size or SVM order is small. In addition, LS-SVMs are compared against the persistence approach, and it is found that they can outperform the persistence model in the majority of cases.

Shearwater foraging in the Southern Ocean: the roles of prey availability and winds.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ben Raymond

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Sooty (Puffinus griseus and short-tailed (P. tenuirostris shearwaters are abundant seabirds that range widely across global oceans. Understanding the foraging ecology of these species in the Southern Ocean is important for monitoring and ecosystem conservation and management. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Tracking data from sooty and short-tailed shearwaters from three regions of New Zealand and Australia were combined with at-sea observations of shearwaters in the Southern Ocean, physical oceanography, near-surface copepod distributions, pelagic trawl data, and synoptic near-surface winds. Shearwaters from all three regions foraged in the Polar Front zone, and showed particular overlap in the region around 140 degrees E. Short-tailed shearwaters from South Australia also foraged in Antarctic waters south of the Polar Front. The spatial distribution of shearwater foraging effort in the Polar Front zone was matched by patterns in large-scale upwelling, primary production, and abundances of copepods and myctophid fish. Oceanic winds were found to be broad determinants of foraging distribution, and of the flight paths taken by the birds on long foraging trips to Antarctic waters. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The shearwaters displayed foraging site fidelity and overlap of foraging habitat between species and populations that may enhance their utility as indicators of Southern Ocean ecosystems. The results highlight the importance of upwellings due to interactions of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current with large-scale bottom topography, and the corresponding localised increases in the productivity of the Polar Front ecosystem.

NASA's Newest SeaWinds Instrument Breezes Into Operation

Science.gov (United States)

2003-01-01

One of NASA's newest Earth-observing instruments, the SeaWinds scatterometer aboard Japan's Advanced Earth Observing Satellite (Adeos) 2--now renamed Midori 2--has successfully transmitted its first radar data to our home planet, generating its first high-quality images.From its orbiting perch high above Earth, SeaWinds on Midori 2 ('midori' is Japanese for the color green, symbolizing the environment) will provide the world's most accurate, highest resolution and broadest geographic coverage of ocean wind speed and direction, sea ice extent and properties of Earth's land surfaces. It will complement and eventually replace an identical instrument orbiting since June 1999 on NASA's Quick Scatterometer (QuikScat) satellite. Its three- to five-year mission will augment a long-term ocean surface wind data series that began in 1996 with launch of the NASA Scatterometer on Japan's first Adeos spacecraft.Climatologists, meteorologists and oceanographers will soon routinely use data from SeaWinds on Midori 2 to understand and predict severe weather patterns, climate change and global weather abnormalities like El Nino. The data are expected to improve global and regional weather forecasts, ship routing and marine hazard avoidance, measurements of sea ice extent and the tracking of icebergs, among other uses.'Midori 2, its SeaWinds instrument and associated ground processing systems are functioning very smoothly,' said Moshe Pniel, scatterometer projects manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 'Following initial checkout and calibration, we look forward to continuous operations, providing vital data to scientists and weather forecasters around the world.' 'These first images show remarkable detail over land, ice and oceans,' said Dr. Michael Freilich, Ocean Vector Winds Science Team Leader, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Ore. 'The combination of SeaWinds data and measurements from other instruments on Midori 2 with data from other international

Intercomparison of the Charnock and COARE bulk wind stress formulations for coastal ocean modelling

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J. M. Brown

2013-08-01

Full Text Available The accurate parameterisation of momentum and heat transfer across the air–sea interface is vital for realistic simulation of the atmosphere–ocean system. In most modelling applications accurate representation of the wind stress is required to numerically reproduce surge, coastal ocean circulation, surface waves, turbulence and mixing. Different formulations can be implemented and impact the accuracy of the instantaneous and long-term residual circulation, the surface mixed layer, and the generation of wave-surge conditions. This, in turn, affects predictions of storm impact, sediment pathways, and coastal resilience to climate change. The specific numerical formulation needs careful selection to ensure the accuracy of the simulation. Two wind stress parameterisations widely used in the ocean circulation and the storm surge communities respectively are studied with focus on an application to the NW region of the UK. Model–observation validation is performed at two nearshore and one estuarine ADCP (acoustic Doppler current profiler stations in Liverpool Bay, a hypertidal region of freshwater influence (ROFI with vast intertidal areas. The period of study covers both calm and extreme conditions to test the robustness of the 10 m wind stress component of the Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere Response Experiment (COARE bulk formulae and the standard Charnock relation. In this coastal application a realistic barotropic–baroclinic simulation of the circulation and surge elevation is set-up, demonstrating greater accuracy occurs when using the Charnock relation, with a constant Charnock coefficient of 0.0185, for surface wind stress during this one month period.

Current error vector based prediction control of the section winding permanent magnet linear synchronous motor

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hong Junjie, E-mail: hongjjie@mail.sysu.edu.cn [School of Engineering, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510006 (China); Li Liyi, E-mail: liliyi@hit.edu.cn [Dept. Electrical Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150000 (China); Zong Zhijian; Liu Zhongtu [School of Engineering, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510006 (China)

2011-10-15

Highlights: {yields} The structure of the permanent magnet linear synchronous motor (SW-PMLSM) is new. {yields} A new current control method CEVPC is employed in this motor. {yields} The sectional power supply method is different to the others and effective. {yields} The performance gets worse with voltage and current limitations. - Abstract: To include features such as greater thrust density, higher efficiency without reducing the thrust stability, this paper proposes a section winding permanent magnet linear synchronous motor (SW-PMLSM), whose iron core is continuous, whereas winding is divided. The discrete system model of the motor is derived. With the definition of the current error vector and selection of the value function, the theory of the current error vector based prediction control (CEVPC) for the motor currents is explained clearly. According to the winding section feature, the motion region of the mover is divided into five zones, in which the implementation of the current predictive control method is proposed. Finally, the experimental platform is constructed and experiments are carried out. The results show: the current control effect has good dynamic response, and the thrust on the mover remains constant basically.

Role of sea surface wind stress forcing on transport between Tropical Pacific and Indian Ocean

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Q.

Using an Indian-Pacific Ocean Circulation Model (IPOM) a simulation study on the Transports of between Tropical Pacific and Indian Ocean such as Indonesian Through flow (ITF) has been done. IPOM covered the area 25°E-70°W, 35°S-60°N. There are 31 levels in the vertical with 22 levels upper 400m in it. The horizontal resolution is 1/3° lat x 1.5° lon between 10°S and 10°N. The coastline and ocean topography of IPOM is prepared from Scripps topography data on 1x1°grid. Forcing IPOM with monthly observational wind stress in 1990-1999 the interannual variation of sea temperature has been reproduced well, not only on El Nino in the Pacific but also on Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD). Therefore, the oceanic circulations in the tropical ocean are reasonable. The analyses of the oceanic circulations from the simulations suggest that the transport southward through Makassar Strait is the primary route of thermocline water masses from the North Pacific to the Indonesian sea. The transport westward through Bali-Western Australian Transect (BWAT, at 117.5E) can be thought as the final output of ITF through the archipelago to Indian Ocean. The transport westward through BWAT is in 8-12S above 150m, its core centered near surface 10S, which looks like a jet. The westward velocity is more than 50 cm/s. The transport shows significant seasonal and interannual variations. The maximum is in Jul-Oct, minimum in Jan-Mar. These results are consistent with some observation basically. The correlation analyses indict that the variations of transport westward is related with the southeasterly anomaly in the east tropical Indian ocean. The transport variation lags wind anomaly about 3 months. The correlation coefficient is more than 0.6. The transport is strong during IOD, for example in 1994 and 1997. The variations are also related with the northwesterly anomaly in the center equatorial Pacific and the easterly in the eastern equatorial Pacific. The transport is strong in most ENSO

A vector radiative transfer model for coupled atmosphere and ocean systems with a rough interface

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhai Pengwang; Hu Yongxiang; Chowdhary, Jacek; Trepte, Charles R.; Lucker, Patricia L.; Josset, Damien B.

2010-01-01

We report on an exact vector (polarized) radiative transfer (VRT) model for coupled atmosphere and ocean systems. This VRT model is based on the successive order of scattering (SOS) method, which virtually takes all the multiple scattering processes into account, including atmospheric scattering, oceanic scattering, reflection and transmission through the rough ocean surface. The isotropic Cox-Munk wave model is used to derive the ref and transmission matrices for the rough ocean surface. Shadowing effects are included by the shadowing function. We validated the SOS results by comparing them with those calculated by two independent codes based on the doubling/adding and Monte Carlo methods. Two error analyses related to the ocean color remote sensing are performed in the coupled atmosphere and ocean systems. One is the scalar error caused by ignoring the polarization in the whole system. The other is the error introduced by ignoring the polarization of the light transmitted through the ocean interface. Both errors are significant for the cases studied. This code fits for the next generation of ocean color study because it converges fast for absorbing medium as, for instance, ocean.

Short-Term Wind Speed Forecasting Using Support Vector Regression Optimized by Cuckoo Optimization Algorithm

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jianzhou Wang

2015-01-01

Full Text Available This paper develops an effectively intelligent model to forecast short-term wind speed series. A hybrid forecasting technique is proposed based on recurrence plot (RP and optimized support vector regression (SVR. Wind caused by the interaction of meteorological systems makes itself extremely unsteady and difficult to forecast. To understand the wind system, the wind speed series is analyzed using RP. Then, the SVR model is employed to forecast wind speed, in which the input variables are selected by RP, and two crucial parameters, including the penalties factor and gamma of the kernel function RBF, are optimized by various optimization algorithms. Those optimized algorithms are genetic algorithm (GA, particle swarm optimization algorithm (PSO, and cuckoo optimization algorithm (COA. Finally, the optimized SVR models, including COA-SVR, PSO-SVR, and GA-SVR, are evaluated based on some criteria and a hypothesis test. The experimental results show that (1 analysis of RP reveals that wind speed has short-term predictability on a short-term time scale, (2 the performance of the COA-SVR model is superior to that of the PSO-SVR and GA-SVR methods, especially for the jumping samplings, and (3 the COA-SVR method is statistically robust in multi-step-ahead prediction and can be applied to practical wind farm applications.

Time Series Analysis and Forecasting for Wind Speeds Using Support Vector Regression Coupled with Artificial Intelligent Algorithms

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ping Jiang

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Wind speed/power has received increasing attention around the earth due to its renewable nature as well as environmental friendliness. With the global installed wind power capacity rapidly increasing, wind industry is growing into a large-scale business. Reliable short-term wind speed forecasts play a practical and crucial role in wind energy conversion systems, such as the dynamic control of wind turbines and power system scheduling. In this paper, an intelligent hybrid model for short-term wind speed prediction is examined; the model is based on cross correlation (CC analysis and a support vector regression (SVR model that is coupled with brainstorm optimization (BSO and cuckoo search (CS algorithms, which are successfully utilized for parameter determination. The proposed hybrid models were used to forecast short-term wind speeds collected from four wind turbines located on a wind farm in China. The forecasting results demonstrate that the intelligent hybrid models outperform single models for short-term wind speed forecasting, which mainly results from the superiority of BSO and CS for parameter optimization.

On the role of surface heat budget parameters over the tropical Indian Ocean in relation to the summer monsoon

Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)

RameshKumar, M.R.; Sastry, J.S.

This study presents the role of sea surface temperature (SST) in the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal, cloud motion vector winds in the Equatorial Indian Ocean, and the cold fronts in the South Africa-Malagassy region on the onset and quantum...

Characteristic vector analysis of inflection ratio spectra: New technique for analysis of ocean color data

Science.gov (United States)

Grew, G. W.

1985-01-01

Characteristic vector analysis applied to inflection ratio spectra is a new approach to analyzing spectral data. The technique applied to remote data collected with the multichannel ocean color sensor (MOCS), a passive sensor, simultaneously maps the distribution of two different phytopigments, chlorophyll alpha and phycoerythrin, the ocean. The data set presented is from a series of warm core ring missions conducted during 1982. The data compare favorably with a theoretical model and with data collected on the same mission by an active sensor, the airborne oceanographic lidar (AOL).

Local inertial oscillations in the surface ocean generated by time-varying winds

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Shengli; Polton, Jeff A.; Hu, Jianyu; Xing, Jiuxing

2015-12-01

A new relationship is presented to give a review study on the evolution of inertial oscillations in the surface ocean locally generated by time-varying wind stress. The inertial oscillation is expressed as the superposition of a previous oscillation and a newly generated oscillation, which depends upon the time-varying wind stress. This relationship is employed to investigate some idealized wind change events. For a wind series varying temporally with different rates, the induced inertial oscillation is dominated by the wind with the greatest variation. The resonant wind, which rotates anti-cyclonically at the local inertial frequency with time, produces maximal amplitude of inertial oscillations, which grows monotonically. For the wind rotating at non-inertial frequencies, the responses vary periodically, with wind injecting inertial energy when it is in phase with the currents, but removing inertial energy when it is out of phase. The wind rotating anti-cyclonically with time is much more favorable to generate inertial oscillations than the cyclonic rotating wind. The wind with a frequency closer to the inertial frequency generates stronger inertial oscillations. For a diurnal wind, the induced inertial oscillation is dependent on latitude and is most significant at 30 °. This relationship is also applied to examine idealized moving cyclones. The inertial oscillation is much stronger on the right-hand side of the cyclone path than on the left-hand side (in the northern hemisphere). This is due to the wind being anti-cyclonic with time on the right-hand side, but cyclonic on the other side. The inertial oscillation varies with the cyclone translation speed. The optimal translation speed generating the greatest inertial oscillations is 2 m/s at the latitude of 10 ° and gradually increases to 6 m/s at the latitude of 30 °.

Reserve Requirement Impacts of Microgrid Integration of Wind, Solar, and Ocean Wave Power Generation

OpenAIRE

Ortego Trujillo, Patxi

2016-01-01

The ocean wave energy is a free and abundant resource which has led to exploring new methods to take advantage of the energy in an efficient and profitable way. The wave energy harnessing techniques are not as mature as other renewable energy resources ones such as wind or solar. Nevertheless, in recent years wave energy converters (WECs) have been gaining attention and restoring confidence worldwide in their role to meet the increasing demands and strict environmental standards Ocean wave po...

Noise model based ν-support vector regression with its application to short-term wind speed forecasting.

Science.gov (United States)

Hu, Qinghua; Zhang, Shiguang; Xie, Zongxia; Mi, Jusheng; Wan, Jie

2014-09-01

Support vector regression (SVR) techniques are aimed at discovering a linear or nonlinear structure hidden in sample data. Most existing regression techniques take the assumption that the error distribution is Gaussian. However, it was observed that the noise in some real-world applications, such as wind power forecasting and direction of the arrival estimation problem, does not satisfy Gaussian distribution, but a beta distribution, Laplacian distribution, or other models. In these cases the current regression techniques are not optimal. According to the Bayesian approach, we derive a general loss function and develop a technique of the uniform model of ν-support vector regression for the general noise model (N-SVR). The Augmented Lagrange Multiplier method is introduced to solve N-SVR. Numerical experiments on artificial data sets, UCI data and short-term wind speed prediction are conducted. The results show the effectiveness of the proposed technique. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

X-band COSMO-SkyMed wind field retrieval, with application to coastal circulation modeling

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Montuori

2013-02-01

Full Text Available In this paper, X-band COSMO-SkyMed^© synthetic aperture radar (SAR wind field retrieval is investigated, and the obtained data are used to force a coastal ocean circulation model. The SAR data set consists of 60 X-band Level 1B Multi-Look Ground Detected ScanSAR Huge Region COSMO-SkyMed^© SAR data, gathered in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea during the summer and winter seasons of 2010. The SAR-based wind vector field estimation is accomplished by resolving both the SAR-based wind speed and wind direction retrieval problems independently. The sea surface wind speed is retrieved by means of a SAR wind speed algorithm based on the azimuth cut-off procedure, while the sea surface wind direction is provided by means of a SAR wind direction algorithm based on the discrete wavelet transform multi-resolution analysis. The obtained wind fields are compared with ground truth data provided by both ASCAT scatterometer and ECMWF model wind fields. SAR-derived wind vector fields and ECMWF model wind data are used to construct a blended wind product regularly sampled in both space and time, which is then used to force a coastal circulation model of a southern Tyrrhenian coastal area to simulate wind-driven circulation processes. The modeling results show that X-band COSMO-SkyMed^© SAR data can be valuable in providing effective wind fields for coastal circulation modeling.

Remote Sensing Marine Ecology: Wind-driven algal blooms in the open oceans and their ecological impacts

Science.gov (United States)

Tang, DanLing

2016-07-01

Algal bloom not only can increase the primary production but also could result in negative ecological consequence, e.g., Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs). According to the classic theory for the formation of algal blooms "critical depth" and "eutrophication", oligotrophic sea area is usually difficult to form a large area of algal blooms, and actually the traditional observation is only sporadic capture to the existence of algal blooms. Taking full advantage of multiple data of satellite remote sensing, this study: 1), introduces "Wind-driven algal blooms in open oceans: observation and mechanisms" It explained except classic coastal Ekman transport, the wind through a variety of mechanisms affecting the formation of algal blooms. Proposed a conceptual model of "Strong wind -upwelling-nutrient-phytoplankton blooms" in Western South China Sea (SCS) to assess role of wind-induced advection transport in phytoplankton bloom formation. It illustrates the nutrient resources that support long-term offshore phytoplankton blooms in the western SCS; 2), Proposal of the theory that "typhoons cause vertical mixing, induce phytoplankton blooms", and quantify their important contribution to marine primary production; Proposal a new ecological index for typhoon. Proposed remote sensing inversion models. 3), Finding of the spatial and temporaldistributions pattern of harmful algal bloom (HAB)and species variations of HAB in the South Yellow Sea and East China Sea, and in the Pearl River estuary, and their oceanic dynamic mechanisms related with monsoon; The project developed new techniques and generated new knowledge, which significantly improved understanding of the formation mechanisms of algal blooms. 1), It proposed "wind-pump" mechanism integrates theoretical system combing "ocean dynamics, development of algal blooms, and impact on primary production", which will benefit fisheries management. 2), A new interdisciplinary subject "Remote Sensing Marine Ecology"(RSME) has been

Buoy observations of the influence of swell on wind waves in the open ocean

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Violante-Carvalho, N.; Robinson, I.S. [University of Southampton (United Kingdom). Oceanography Centre; Ocampo-Torres, F.J. [CICESE, Ensenada (Mexico). Dpto. de Oceanografia Fisica

2004-04-01

The influence of longer (swell) on shorter, wind sea waves is examined using an extensive database of directional buoy measurements obtained from a heave-pitch-roll buoy moored in deep water in the South Atlantic. This data set is unique for such an investigation due to the ubiquitous presence of a young swell component propagating closely in direction and frequency with the wind sea, as well as a longer, opposing swell. Our results show, within the statistical limits of the regressions obtained from our analysis when compared to measurements in swell free environments, that there is no obvious influence of swell on wind sea growth. For operational purposes in ocean engineering this means that power-laws from fetch limited situations describing the wind sea growth can be applied in more realistic situations in the open sea when swell is present. (author)

Extreme wind-wave modeling and analysis in the south Atlantic ocean

Science.gov (United States)

Campos, R. M.; Alves, J. H. G. M.; Guedes Soares, C.; Guimaraes, L. G.; Parente, C. E.

2018-04-01

A set of wave hindcasts is constructed using two different types of wind calibration, followed by an additional test retuning the input source term Sin in the wave model. The goal is to improve the simulation in extreme wave events in the South Atlantic Ocean without compromising average conditions. Wind fields are based on Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR/NCEP). The first wind calibration applies a simple linear regression model, with coefficients obtained from the comparison of CFSR against buoy data. The second is a method where deficiencies of the CFSR associated with severe sea state events are remedied, whereby "defective" winds are replaced with satellite data within cyclones. A total of six wind datasets forced WAVEWATCH-III and additional three tests with modified Sin in WAVEWATCH III lead to a total of nine wave hindcasts that are evaluated against satellite and buoy data for ambient and extreme conditions. The target variable considered is the significant wave height (Hs). The increase of sea-state severity shows a progressive increase of the hindcast underestimation which could be calculated as a function of percentiles. The wind calibration using a linear regression function shows similar results to the adjustments to Sin term (increase of βmax parameter) in WAVEWATCH-III - it effectively reduces the average bias of Hs but cannot avoid the increase of errors with percentiles. The use of blended scatterometer winds within cyclones could reduce the increasing wave hindcast errors mainly above the 93rd percentile and leads to a better representation of Hs at the peak of the storms. The combination of linear regression calibration of non-cyclonic winds with scatterometer winds within the cyclones generated a wave hindcast with small errors from calm to extreme conditions. This approach led to a reduction of the percentage error of Hs from 14% to less than 8% for extreme waves, while also improving the RMSE.

Twenty-first century wave climate projections for Ireland and surface winds in the North Atlantic Ocean

Science.gov (United States)

Gallagher, Sarah; Gleeson, Emily; Tiron, Roxana; McGrath, Ray; Dias, Frédéric

2016-04-01

Ireland has a highly energetic wave and wind climate, and is therefore uniquely placed in terms of its ocean renewable energy resource. The socio-economic importance of the marine resource to Ireland makes it critical to quantify how the wave and wind climate may change in the future due to global climate change. Projected changes in winds, ocean waves and the frequency and severity of extreme weather events should be carefully assessed for long-term marine and coastal planning. We derived an ensemble of future wave climate projections for Ireland using the EC-Earth global climate model and the WAVEWATCH III® wave model, by comparing the future 30-year period 2070-2099 to the period 1980-2009 for the RCP4.5 and the RCP8.5 forcing scenarios. This dataset is currently the highest resolution wave projection dataset available for Ireland. The EC-Earth ensemble predicts decreases in mean (up to 2 % for RCP4.5 and up to 3.5 % for RCP8.5) 10 m wind speeds over the North Atlantic Ocean (5-75° N, 0-80° W) by the end of the century, which will consequently affect swell generation for the Irish wave climate. The WAVEWATCH III® model predicts an overall decrease in annual and seasonal mean significant wave heights around Ireland, with the largest decreases in summer (up to 15 %) and winter (up to 10 %) for RCP8.5. Projected decreases in mean significant wave heights for spring and autumn were found to be small for both forcing scenarios (less than 5 %), with no significant decrease found for RCP4.5 off the west coast in those seasons.

Wind Resource Estimation using QuikSCAT Ocean Surface Winds

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Xu, Qing; Zhang, Guosheng; Cheng, Yongcun

2011-01-01

In this study, the offshore wind resources in the East China Sea and South China Sea were estimated from over ten years of QuikSCAT scatterometer wind products. Since the errors of these products are larger close to the coast due to the land contamination of radar backscatter signal...... and the complexity of air-sea interaction processes, an empirical relationship that adjusts QuikSCAT winds in coastal waters was first proposed based on vessel measurements. Then the shape and scale parameters of Weibull function are determined for wind resource estimation. The wind roses are also plotted. Results...

Variability of wind stress and currents at selected locations over the north Indian Ocean during 1977 and 1979 summer monsoon seasons

Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)

Gopalakrishna, V.V.; Sadhuram, Y.; RameshBabu, V.; Rao, M.V.

Intra-seasonal variability of wind stress, wind stress curl and currents at different locations over the northern Indian Ocean during two contrasting monsoon seasons has been investigated making use of the time series data collected during MONSOON...

NODC Standard Format Ocean Wind Time Series from Buoys (F101) Data (1975-1985) (NODC Accession 0014194)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — This file type contains time series measurements of wind and other surface meteorological parameters taken at fixed locations. The instrument arrays may be deployed...

Near 7-day response of ocean bottom pressure to atmospheric surface pressure and winds in the northern South China Sea

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Kun; Zhu, Xiao-Hua; Zhao, Ruixiang

2018-02-01

Ocean bottom pressures, observed by five pressure-recording inverted echo sounders (PIESs) from October 2012 to July 2014, exhibit strong near 7-day variability in the northern South China Sea (SCS) where long-term in situ bottom pressure observations are quite sparse. This variability was strongest in October 2013 during the near two years observation period. By joint analysis with European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) data, it is shown that the near 7-day ocean bottom pressure variability is closely related to the local atmospheric surface pressure and winds. Within a period band near 7 days, there are high coherences, exceeding 95% significance level, of observed ocean bottom pressure with local atmospheric surface pressure and with both zonal and meridional components of the wind. Ekman pumping/suction caused by the meridional component of the wind in particular, is suggested as one driving mechanism. A Kelvin wave response to the near 7-day oscillation would propagate down along the continental slope, observed at the Qui Nhon in the Vietnam. By multiple and partial coherence analyses, we find that local atmospheric surface pressure and Ekman pumping/suction show nearly equal influence on ocean bottom pressure variability at near 7-day periods. A schematic diagram representing an idealized model gives us a possible mechanism to explain the relationship between ocean bottom pressure and local atmospheric forcing at near 7-day periods in the northern SCS.

Spacebased Observation of Water Balance Over Global Oceans

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, W.; Xie, X.

2008-12-01

We demonstrated that ocean surface fresh water flux less the water discharge into the ocean from river and ice melt balances the mass loss in the ocean both in magnitude and in the phase of annual variation. The surface water flux was computed from the divergence of the water transport integrated over the depth of the atmosphere. The atmospheric water transport is estimated from the precipitable water measured by Special Sensor Microwave Imager, the surface wind vector by QuikSCAT, and the NOAA cloud drift wind through a statistical model. The transport has been extensively validated using global radiosonde and data and operational numerical weather prediction results. Its divergence has been shown to agree with the difference between evaporation estimated from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer data and the precipitation measured by Tropical Rain Measuring Mission over the global tropical and subtropical oceans both in magnitude and geographical distribution for temporal scales ranging from intraseasonal to interannual. The water loss rate in the ocean is estimated by two methods, one is from Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment and the other is by subtracting the climatological steric change from the sea level change measured by radar altimeter on Jason. Only climatological river discharge and ice melt from in situ measurements are available and the lack of temporal variation may contribute to discrepancies in the balance. We have successfully used the spacebased surface fluxes to estimate to climatological mean heat transport in the Atlantic ocean and is attempting to estimate the meridional fresh water (or salt) transport from the surface flux. The approximate closure of the water balance gives a powerful indirect validation of the spacebased products.

Multiple insecticide resistances in the disease vector Culex p. quinquefasciatus from Western Indian Ocean.

Science.gov (United States)

Pocquet, Nicolas; Milesi, Pascal; Makoundou, Patrick; Unal, Sandra; Zumbo, Betty; Atyame, Célestine; Darriet, Frédéric; Dehecq, Jean-Sébastien; Thiria, Julien; Bheecarry, Ambicadutt; Iyaloo, Diana P; Weill, Mylène; Chandre, Fabrice; Labbé, Pierrick

2013-01-01

Several mosquito-borne diseases affect the Western Indian Ocean islands. Culex pipiens quinquefasciatus is one of these vectors and transmits filariasis, Rift Valley and West Nile viruses and the Japanese encephalitis. To limit the impact of these diseases on public health, considerable vector control efforts have been implemented since the 50s, mainly through the use of neurotoxic insecticides belonging to Organochlorines (OC), Organophosphates (OP) and pyrethroids (PYR) families. However, mosquito control failures have been reported on site, and they were probably due to the selection of resistant individuals in response to insecticide exposure. In this study, we used different approaches to establish a first regional assessment of the levels and mechanisms of resistance to various insecticides. Bioassays were used to evaluate resistance to various insecticides, enzyme activity was measured to assess the presence of metabolic resistances through elevated detoxification, and molecular identification of known resistance alleles was investigated to determine the frequency of target-site mutations. These complementary approaches showed that resistance to the most used insecticides families (OC, OP and PYR) is widespread at a regional scale. However, the distribution of the different resistance genes is quite heterogeneous among the islands, some being found at high frequencies everywhere, others being frequent in some islands and absent in others. Moreover, two resistance alleles displayed clinal distributions in Mayotte and La Réunion, probably as a result of a heterogeneous selection due to local treatment practices. These widespread and diverse resistance mechanisms reduce the capacity of resistance management through classical strategies (e.g. insecticide rotation). In case of a disease outbreak, it could undermine the efforts of the vector control services, as only few compounds could be used. It thus becomes urgent to find alternatives to control populations

Multiple insecticide resistances in the disease vector Culex p. quinquefasciatus from Western Indian Ocean.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nicolas Pocquet

Full Text Available Several mosquito-borne diseases affect the Western Indian Ocean islands. Culex pipiens quinquefasciatus is one of these vectors and transmits filariasis, Rift Valley and West Nile viruses and the Japanese encephalitis. To limit the impact of these diseases on public health, considerable vector control efforts have been implemented since the 50s, mainly through the use of neurotoxic insecticides belonging to Organochlorines (OC, Organophosphates (OP and pyrethroids (PYR families. However, mosquito control failures have been reported on site, and they were probably due to the selection of resistant individuals in response to insecticide exposure. In this study, we used different approaches to establish a first regional assessment of the levels and mechanisms of resistance to various insecticides. Bioassays were used to evaluate resistance to various insecticides, enzyme activity was measured to assess the presence of metabolic resistances through elevated detoxification, and molecular identification of known resistance alleles was investigated to determine the frequency of target-site mutations. These complementary approaches showed that resistance to the most used insecticides families (OC, OP and PYR is widespread at a regional scale. However, the distribution of the different resistance genes is quite heterogeneous among the islands, some being found at high frequencies everywhere, others being frequent in some islands and absent in others. Moreover, two resistance alleles displayed clinal distributions in Mayotte and La Réunion, probably as a result of a heterogeneous selection due to local treatment practices. These widespread and diverse resistance mechanisms reduce the capacity of resistance management through classical strategies (e.g. insecticide rotation. In case of a disease outbreak, it could undermine the efforts of the vector control services, as only few compounds could be used. It thus becomes urgent to find alternatives to

Back-to-back three-level converter controlled by a novel space-vector hysteresis current control for wind conversion systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ghennam, Tarak [Laboratoire d' Electronique de Puissance (LEP), UER: Electrotechnique, Ecole Militaire Polytechnique d' Alger, BP 17, Bordj EL Bahri, Alger (Algeria); Berkouk, El-Madjid [Laboratoire de Commande des Processus (LCP), Ecole Nationale Polytechnique d' Alger, BP 182, 10 avenue Hassen Badi, 16200 el Harrach (Algeria)

2010-04-15

In this paper, a novel space-vector hysteresis current control (SVHCC) is proposed for a back-to-back three-level converter which is used as an electronic interface in a wind conversion system. The proposed SVHCC controls the active and reactive powers delivered to the grid by the doubly fed induction machine (DFIM) through the control of its rotor currents. In addition, it controls the neutral point voltage by using the redundant inverter switching states. The three rotor current errors are gathered into a single space-vector quantity. The magnitude of the error vector is limited within boundary areas of a square shape. The control scheme is based firstly on the detection of the area and sector in which the vector tip of the current error can be located. Then, an appropriate voltage vector among the 27 voltage vectors of the three-level voltage source inverter (VSI) is applied to push the error vector towards the hysteresis boundaries. Simple look-up tables are required for the area and sector detection, and also for vector selection. The performance of the proposed control technique has been verified by simulations. (author)

Wind Generated Ocean Waves

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Frigaard, Peter

2001-01-01

Book review: I. R. Young, Elsevier Ocean Engineering Series, Vol 2. Elsevier Science, Oxford, UK, 1999, 306 pages, hardbound, ISBN 0-08-043317-0, Dfl. 275,00 (US$ 139.50)......Book review: I. R. Young, Elsevier Ocean Engineering Series, Vol 2. Elsevier Science, Oxford, UK, 1999, 306 pages, hardbound, ISBN 0-08-043317-0, Dfl. 275,00 (US$ 139.50)...

Coastal and rain-induced wind variability depicted by scatterometers

Science.gov (United States)

Portabella, M.; Lin, W.; Stoffelen, A.; Turiel, A.; Verhoef, A.; Verspeek, J.; Ballabrera, J.; Vogelzang, J.

2012-04-01

A detailed knowledge of local wind variability near the shore is very important since it strongly affects the weather and microclimate in coastal regions. Since coastal areas are densely populated and most activity at sea occurs near the shore, sea-surface wind field information is important for a number of applications. In the vicinity of land sea-breeze, wave fetch, katabatic and current effects are more likely than in the open ocean, thus enhancing air-sea interaction. Also very relevant for air-sea interaction are the rain-induced phenomena, such as downbursts and convergence. Relatively cold and dry air is effectively transported to the ocean surface and surface winds are enhanced. In general, both coastal and rain-induced wind variability are poorly resolved by Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models. Satellite real aperture radars (i.e., scatterometers) are known to provide accurate mesoscale (25-50 km resolution) sea surface wind field information used in a wide variety of applications. Nowadays, there are two operating scatterometers in orbit, i.e., the C-band Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) onboard Metop-A and the Ku-band scatterometer (OSCAT) onboard Oceansat-2. The EUMETSAT Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility (OSI SAF) delivers several ASCAT level 2 wind products with 25 km and 12.5 km Wind Vector Cell (WVC) spacing, including a pre-operational coastal wind product as well as an OSCAT level 2 wind product with 50 km spacing in development status. Rain is known to both attenuate and scatter the microwave signal. In addition, there is a "splashing" effect. The roughness of the sea surface is increased because of splashing due to rain drops. The so-called "rain contamination" is larger for Ku-band scatterometer systems than for C-band systems. Moreover, the associated downdrafts lead to variable wind speeds and directions, further complicating the wind retrieval. The C-band ASCAT high resolution wind processing is validated under rainy

Geosat altimeter derived sea surface wind speeds and significant wave heights for the north Indian Ocean and their comparison with in situ data

Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)

Vethamony, P.; Vaithiyanathan, R.; Almeida, A.M.; Santanam, K.; Rao, L.V.G.; Sarkar, A.; Kumar, R.; Gairola, R.M.; Gohil, B.S.

Geosat altimeter data for the period November 1986-October 1987 over the north Indian Ocean have been processed to retrieve wind speeds and significant wave heights. Smoothed Brown algorithm is used to retrieve wind speeds from back...

Distinctive Features of Surface Winds over Indian Ocean Between Strong and Weak Indian Summer Monsoons: Implications With Respect To Regional Rainfall Change in India

Science.gov (United States)

Zheng, Y.; Bourassa, M. A.; Ali, M. M.

2017-12-01

This observational study focuses on characterizing the surface winds in the Arabian Sea (AS), the Bay of Bengal (BoB), and the southern Indian Ocean (SIO) with special reference to the strong and weak Indian summer monsoon rainfall (ISMR) using the latest daily gridded rainfall dataset provided by the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) and the Cross-Calibrated Multi-Platform (CCMP) gridded wind product version 2.0 produced by Remote Sensing System (RSS) over the overlapped period 1991-2014. The potential links between surface winds and Indian regional rainfall are also examined. Results indicate that the surface wind speeds in AS and BoB during June-August are almost similar during strong ISMRs and weak ISMRs, whereas significant discrepancies are observed during September. By contrast, the surface wind speeds in SIO during June-August are found to be significantly different between strong and weak ISMRs, where they are similar during September. The significant differences in monthly mean surface wind convergence between strong and weak ISMRs are not coherent in space in the three regions. However, the probability density function (PDF) distributions of daily mean area-averaged values are distinctive between strong and weak ISMRs in the three regions. The correlation analysis indicates the area-averaged surface wind speeds in AS and the area-averaged wind convergence in BoB are highly correlated with regional rainfall for both strong and weak ISMRs. The wind convergence in BoB during strong ISMRs is relatively better correlated with regional rainfall than during weak ISMRs. The surface winds in SIO do not greatly affect Indian rainfall in short timescales, however, they will ultimately affect the strength of monsoon circulation by modulating Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) mode via atmosphere-ocean interactions.

Uncertainty in the global oceanic CO2 uptake induced by wind forcing: quantification and spatial analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Roobaert

2018-03-01

Full Text Available The calculation of the air–water CO2 exchange (FCO2 in the ocean not only depends on the gradient in CO2 partial pressure at the air–water interface but also on the parameterization of the gas exchange transfer velocity (k and the choice of wind product. Here, we present regional and global-scale quantifications of the uncertainty in FCO2 induced by several widely used k formulations and four wind speed data products (CCMP, ERA, NCEP1 and NCEP2. The analysis is performed at a 1°  ×  1° resolution using the sea surface pCO2 climatology generated by Landschützer et al. (2015a for the 1991–2011 period, while the regional assessment relies on the segmentation proposed by the Regional Carbon Cycle Assessment and Processes (RECCAP project. First, we use k formulations derived from the global 14C inventory relying on a quadratic relationship between k and wind speed (k = c ⋅ U102; Sweeney et al., 2007; Takahashi et al., 2009; Wanninkhof, 2014, where c is a calibration coefficient and U10 is the wind speed measured 10 m above the surface. Our results show that the range of global FCO2, calculated with these k relationships, diverge by 12 % when using CCMP, ERA or NCEP1. Due to differences in the regional wind patterns, regional discrepancies in FCO2 are more pronounced than global. These global and regional differences significantly increase when using NCEP2 or other k formulations which include earlier relationships (i.e., Wanninkhof, 1992; Wanninkhof et al., 2009 as well as numerous local and regional parameterizations derived experimentally. To minimize uncertainties associated with the choice of wind product, it is possible to recalculate the coefficient c globally (hereafter called c∗ for a given wind product and its spatio-temporal resolution, in order to match the last evaluation of the global k value. We thus performed these recalculations for each wind product at the resolution and time period of our study

Uncertainty in the global oceanic CO2 uptake induced by wind forcing: quantification and spatial analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Roobaert, Alizée; Laruelle, Goulven G.; Landschützer, Peter; Regnier, Pierre

2018-03-01

The calculation of the air-water CO2 exchange (FCO2) in the ocean not only depends on the gradient in CO2 partial pressure at the air-water interface but also on the parameterization of the gas exchange transfer velocity (k) and the choice of wind product. Here, we present regional and global-scale quantifications of the uncertainty in FCO2 induced by several widely used k formulations and four wind speed data products (CCMP, ERA, NCEP1 and NCEP2). The analysis is performed at a 1° × 1° resolution using the sea surface pCO2 climatology generated by Landschützer et al. (2015a) for the 1991-2011 period, while the regional assessment relies on the segmentation proposed by the Regional Carbon Cycle Assessment and Processes (RECCAP) project. First, we use k formulations derived from the global 14C inventory relying on a quadratic relationship between k and wind speed (k = c ṡ U102; Sweeney et al., 2007; Takahashi et al., 2009; Wanninkhof, 2014), where c is a calibration coefficient and U10 is the wind speed measured 10 m above the surface. Our results show that the range of global FCO2, calculated with these k relationships, diverge by 12 % when using CCMP, ERA or NCEP1. Due to differences in the regional wind patterns, regional discrepancies in FCO2 are more pronounced than global. These global and regional differences significantly increase when using NCEP2 or other k formulations which include earlier relationships (i.e., Wanninkhof, 1992; Wanninkhof et al., 2009) as well as numerous local and regional parameterizations derived experimentally. To minimize uncertainties associated with the choice of wind product, it is possible to recalculate the coefficient c globally (hereafter called c∗) for a given wind product and its spatio-temporal resolution, in order to match the last evaluation of the global k value. We thus performed these recalculations for each wind product at the resolution and time period of our study but the resulting global FCO2 estimates

Simulation of the Impact of New Aircraft- and Satellite-Based Ocean Surface Wind Measurements on H*Wind Analyses and Numerical Forecasts

Science.gov (United States)

Miller, Timothy; Atlas, Robert; Black, Peter; Chen, Shuyi; Hood, Robbie; Johnson, James; Jones, Linwood; Ruf, Chris; Uhlhorn, Eric; Krishnamurti, T. N.;

Turbulent kinetic energy of the ocean winds over the Kuroshio Extension from QuikSCAT winds (1999-2009)

Science.gov (United States)

Yu, Kai; Dong, Changming; King, Gregory P.

2017-06-01

We investigate mesoscale turbulence (10-1000 km) in the ocean winds over the Kuroshio Extension (28°N-40°N, 140°E-180°E) using the QuikSCAT data set (November 1999 to October 2009). We calculate the second (Djj) and third-order structure functions (Djjj) and the spatial variance (Vj) as a function of scale r (j=L,T denotes, respectively, the longitudinal (divergent) and transverse (vortical) component). The most interesting results of the analysis follow. Although both Vj>(r>) and Djj>(r>) measure the turbulent kinetic energy (TKE), we find that Vj>(r>) is the more robust measure. The spatial variance density (dVj/dr) has a broad peak near 450 km (close to the midlatitude Rossby radius of deformation). On interannual time scales, TKE correlates well with the El Niño 3.4 index. According to turbulence theory, the kinetic energy cascades downscale (upscale) if DLLL>(r>) (also skewness SL=DLLL/DLL3/2) is negative (positive). Our results for the Kuroshio Extension are consistent with a downscale cascade (indicating convergence dominates). Furthermore, classical turbulence theory predicts that SL=-0.3 and independent of r; however, we find SL varies strongly with r, from -4 at small scales to -0.3 at large scales. This nonclassical behavior implies strong-scale interaction, which we attribute to the rapid, and sometimes explosive, growth of storms in the region through baroclinic instability. Finally, we find that ST (a measure of cyclonic/anticyclonic asymmetry) is positive (cyclonic) and also varies strongly with r, from 4 at small scales to 0.5 at large scales. New turbulence models are needed to explain these results, and that will benefit Weather Prediction and climate modeling.Plain Language SummaryThe turbulent winds near the ocean surface give rise to air-sea heat and momentum exchange. The turbulence is caused by convective processes - processes generated at weather fronts, in squalls, tropical disturbances and extra-tropical cyclones. In order to improve

Wind, QuikSCAT SeaWinds, 0.25 degrees, Global, Science Quality, Meridional

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Remote Sensing Inc. distributes science quality wind velocity data from the SeaWinds instrument onboard NASA's QuikSCAT satellite. SeaWinds is a microwave...

Wind, QuikSCAT SeaWinds, 0.25 degrees, Global, Science Quality, Modulus

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Remote Sensing Inc. distributes science quality wind velocity data from the SeaWinds instrument onboard NASA's QuikSCAT satellite. SeaWinds is a microwave...

Satellite Remote Sensing in Offshore Wind Energy

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hasager, Charlotte Bay; Badger, Merete; Astrup, Poul

2013-01-01

Satellite remote sensing of ocean surface winds are presented with focus on wind energy applications. The history on operational and research-based satellite ocean wind mapping is briefly described for passive microwave, scatterometer and synthetic aperture radar (SAR). Currently 6 GW installed...

Lidar-Observed Stress Vectors and Veer in the Atmospheric Boundary Layer

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Berg, Jacob; Mann, Jakob; Patton, Edward G.

2013-01-01

This study demonstrates that a pulsed wind lidar is a reliable instrument for measuring angles between horizontal vectors of significance in the atmospheric boundary layer. Three different angles are considered: the wind turning, the angle between the stress vector and the mean wind direction......, and the angle between the stress vector and the vertical gradient of the mean velocity vector. The latter is assumed to be zero by the often applied turbulent-viscosity hypothesis, so that the stress vector can be described through the vertical gradient of velocity. In the atmospheric surface layer, where...... the Coriolis force is negligible, this is supposedly a good approximation. High-resolution large-eddy simulation data show that this is indeed the case even beyond the surface layer. In contrast, through analysis of WindCube lidar measurements supported by sonic measurements, the study shows that it is only...

Wind, QuikSCAT SeaWinds, 0.25 degrees, Global, Science Quality, Meridional

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) distributes science quality wind velocity data from the SeaWinds instrument onboard NASA's QuikSCAT satellite. SeaWinds is a...

Wind, QuikSCAT SeaWinds, 0.25 degrees, Global, Science Quality, Zonal

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) distributes science quality wind velocity data from the SeaWinds instrument onboard NASA's QuikSCAT satellite. SeaWinds is a...

Comparison of wind data from QuikSCAT and buoys in the Indian Ocean

Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)

Satheesan, K.; Sarkar, A; Parekh, A; RameshKumar, M.R.; Kuroda, Y.

QuikSCAT derived winds over NIO matches better with in-situ compared to those derived over the EIO. Earlier studies by Thompson et al., (1983) and Keller et al., (1985) have reported a dependence of backscatter cross section in L and X...-120. SENGUPTA D, GOSWAMI B N AND SENAN R 2001, Coherent intraseasonal oscillations of ocean and atmosphere during the Asian summer monsoon, Geophys. Res. Lett., 28, 4127 – 4130. THOMPSON, T. W., D. E. WEISSMAN AND F. I. GONZALEZ, 1983: L band radar...

Current components, physical, ocean circulation, wind circulation, and other data from moored buoys, CTD casts, drifting buoys, and in situ wind recorders from AIRCRAFT and other platforms from the North Atlantic Ocean and other locations as part of the Seasonal Response of the Equatorial Atlantic Experiment/Français Océan et Climat dans l'Atlantique Equatorial (SEQUAL/FOCAL) project from 1980-01-25 to 1985-12-18 (NODC Accession 8700111)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Current components, physical, ocean circulation, wind circulation, and other data were collected from moored buoys, CTD casts, drifting buoys, and in situ wind...

Wind and temperature data from current meter in the TOGA - Pacific Ocean (30 N to 30 S) as part of the Equatorial Pacific Ocean Climate Studies (EPOCS), 28 May 1994 to 21 March 1995 (NODC Accession 9800041)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Wind and temperature data were collected using current meter in the TOGA Area - Pacific Ocean (30 N to 30 S) from May 28, 1994 to March 21, 1995. Data were submitted...

Navigating a sea of values: Understanding public attitudes toward the ocean and ocean energy resources

Science.gov (United States)

Lilley, Jonathan Charles

In examining ocean values and beliefs, this study investigates the moral and ethical aspects of the relationships that exist between humans and the marine environment. In short, this dissertation explores what the American public thinks of the ocean. The study places a specific focus upon attitudes to ocean energy development. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, this research: elicits mental models that exist in society regarding the ocean; unearths what philosophies underpin people's attitudes toward the ocean and offshore energy development; assesses whether these views have any bearing on pro-environmental behavior; and gauges support for offshore drilling and offshore wind development. Despite the fact that the ocean is frequently ranked as a second-tier environmental issue, Americans are concerned about the state of the marine environment. Additionally, the data show that lack of knowledge, rather than apathy, prevents people from undertaking pro-environmental action. With regard to philosophical beliefs, Americans hold slightly more nonanthropocentric than anthropocentric views toward the environment. Neither anthropocentrism nor nonanthropocentrism has any real impact on pro-environmental behavior, although nonanthropocentric attitudes reduce support for offshore wind. This research also uncovers two gaps between scientific and public perceptions of offshore wind power with respect to: 1) overall environmental effects; and 2) the size of the resource. Providing better information to the public in the first area may lead to a shift toward offshore wind support among opponents with nonanthropocentric attitudes, and in both areas, is likely to increase offshore wind support.

Wind Stress, QuikSCAT SeaWinds, 0.25 degrees, Global, Science Quality, Zonal

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — NOAA CoastWatch distributes science quality wind stress data in zonal, meridional, modulus, and wind stress curl sets. This data begins with wind velocity...

Wind Stress, QuikSCAT SeaWinds, 0.25 degrees, Global, Science Quality, Curl

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — NOAA CoastWatch distributes science quality wind stress data in zonal, meridional, modulus, and wind stress curl sets. This data begins with wind velocity...

Wind Stress, QuikSCAT SeaWinds, 0.25 degrees, Global, Science Quality, Meridional

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — NOAA CoastWatch distributes science quality wind stress data in zonal, meridional, modulus, and wind stress curl sets. This data begins with wind velocity...

Wind Stress, QuikSCAT SeaWinds, 0.25 degrees, Global, Science Quality, Modulus

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — NOAA CoastWatch distributes science quality wind stress data in zonal, meridional, modulus, and wind stress curl sets. This data begins with wind velocity...

Characterization of wind velocities in the wake of a full scale wind turbine using three ground-based synchronized WindScanners

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Yazicioglu, Hasan; Angelou, Nikolas; Mikkelsen, Torben Krogh

2016-01-01

The wind energy community is in need of detailed full-field measurements in the wake of wind turbines. Here, three dimensional(3D) wind vector field measurements obtained in the near-wake region behind a full-scale test turbine are presented. Specifically, the wake of a NEG Nordtank turbine...

Offshore Wind Energy: Wind and Sea Surface Temperature from Satellite Observations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Karagali, Ioanna

as the entire atmosphere above. Under conditions of light winds and strong solar insolation, warming of the upper oceanic layer may occur. In this PhD study, remote sensing from satellites is used to obtain information for the near-surface ocean wind and the sea surface temperature over the North Sea......, demonstrate that wind information from SAR is more appropriate when small scale local features are of interest, not resolved by scatterometers. Hourly satellite observations of the sea surface temperature, from a thermal infra-red sensor, are used to identify and quantify the daily variability of the sea...

Simulation of the Impact of New Aircraft-and Satellite-based Ocean Surface Wind Measurements on Wind Analyses and Numerical Forecasts

Science.gov (United States)

Miller, TImothy; Atlas, Robert; Black, Peter; Chen, Shuyi; Jones, Linwood; Ruf, Chris; Uhlhorn, Eric; Gamache, John; Amarin, Ruba; El-Nimri, Salem;

Short term prediction of the horizontal wind vector within a wake vortex warning system

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Frech, M.; Holzaepfel, F.; Gerz, T. [DLR Deutsches Zentrum fuer Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V., Wessling (Germany). Inst. fuer Physik der Atmosphaere; Konopka, J. [Deutsche Flugsicherung (DFS) GmbH, Langen (Germany)

2000-07-14

A wake vortex warning system (WVWS) has been developed for Frankfurt airport. This airport has two parallel runways which are separated by 518 m, a distance too short to operate them independently because wake vortices may be advected to the adjacent runway. The objective of the WVWS is to enable operation with reduced separation between two aircraft approaching the parallel runways at appropriate wind conditions. The WVWS applies a statistical persistence model to predict the crosswind within a 20 minute period. One of the main problems identified in the old WVWS are discontinuities between successive forecasts. These forecast breakdowns were not acceptable to airtraffic controllers. At least part of the problem was related to the fact that the forecast was solely based on the prediction of crosswind. A new method is developed on the basis of 523 days of sonic anemometer measurements at Frankfurt airport. It is demonstrated that the prediction of the horizontal wind vector avoids these difficulties and significantly improves the system's performance. (orig.)

Extratropical Influence of Sea Surface Temperature and Wind on Water Recycling Rate Over Oceans and Coastal Lands

Science.gov (United States)

Hu, Hua; Liu, W. Timothy

1999-01-01

Water vapor and precipitation are two important parameters confining the hydrological cycle in the atmosphere and over the ocean surface. In the extratropical areas, due to variations of midlatitude storm tracks and subtropical jetstreams, water vapor and precipitation have large variability. Recently, a concept of water recycling rate defined previously by Chahine et al. (GEWEX NEWS, August, 1997) has drawn increasing attention. The recycling rate of moisture is calculated as the ratio of precipitation to total precipitable water (its inverse is the water residence time). In this paper, using multi-sensor spacebased measurements we will study the role of sea surface temperature and ocean surface wind in determining the water recycling rate over oceans and coastal lands. Response of water recycling rate in midlatitudes to the El Nino event will also be discussed. Sea surface temperature data are derived from satellite observations from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) blended with in situ measurements, available for the period 1982-1998. Global sea surface wind observations are obtained from spaceborne scatterometers aboard on the European Remote-Sensing Satellite (ERS1 and 2), available for the period 1991-1998. Global total precipitable water provided by the NASA Water Vapor Project (NVAP) is available for the period 1988-1995. Global monthly mean precipitation provided by the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) is available for the period 1987-1998.

A FGGE water vapor wind data set

Science.gov (United States)

Stewart, Tod R.; Hayden, Christopher M.

1985-01-01

It has been recognized for some time that water vapor structure visible in infrared imagery offers a potential for obtaining motion vectors when several images are considered in sequence (Fischer et al., 1981). A study evaluating water vapor winds obtained from the VISSR atmospheric sounder (Stewart et al., 1985) has confirmed the viability of the approach. More recently, 20 data sets have been produced from METEOSAT water vapor imagery for the FGGE period of 10-25 November 1979. Where possible, two data sets were prepared for each day at 0000 and 1200 GMT and compared with rawinsondes over Europe, Africa, and aircraft observations over the oceans. Procedures for obtaining winds were, in general, similar to the earlier study. Motions were detected both by a single pixel tracking and a cross correlation method by using three images individually separated by one hour. A height assignment was determined by matching the measured brightness temperature to the temperature structure represented by the FGGE-IIIB analyses. Results show that the METEOSAT water vapor winds provide uniform horizontal coverage of mid-level flow over the globe with good accuracy.

Observations of Near-Surface Current Shear Help Describe Oceanic Oil and Plastic Transport

Science.gov (United States)

Laxague, Nathan J. M.; Ö-zgökmen, Tamay M.; Haus, Brian K.; Novelli, Guillaume; Shcherbina, Andrey; Sutherland, Peter; Guigand, Cédric M.; Lund, Björn; Mehta, Sanchit; Alday, Matias; Molemaker, Jeroen

2018-01-01

Plastics and spilled oil pose a critical threat to marine life and human health. As a result of wind forcing and wave motions, theoretical and laboratory studies predict very strong velocity variation with depth over the upper few centimeters of the water column, an observational blind spot in the real ocean. Here we present the first-ever ocean measurements of the current vector profile defined to within 1 cm of the free surface. In our illustrative example, the current magnitude averaged over the upper 1 cm of the ocean is shown to be nearly four times the average over the upper 10 m, even for mild forcing. Our findings indicate that this shear will rapidly separate pieces of marine debris which vary in size or buoyancy, making consideration of these dynamics essential to an improved understanding of the pathways along which marine plastics and oil are transported.

Effect of Wind Speed on Aerosol Optical Depth over Remote Oceans, Based on Data from the Maritime Aerosol Network

Science.gov (United States)

Smirnov, A.; Sayer, A. M.; Holben, B. N.; Hsu, N. C.; Sakerin, S. M.; Macke, A.; Nelson, N. B.; Courcoux, Y.; Smyth, T. J.; Croot, P.;

NASA's GMAO Atmospheric Motion Vectors Simulator: Description and Application to the MISTiC Winds Concept

Science.gov (United States)

Carvalho, David; McCarty, Will; Errico, Ron; Prive, Nikki

2018-01-01

An atmospheric wind vectors (AMVs) simulator was developed by NASA's GMAO to simulate observations from future satellite constellation concepts. The synthetic AMVs can then be used in OSSEs to estimate and quantify the potential added value of new observations to the present Earth observing system and, ultimately, the expected impact on the current weather forecasting skill. The GMAO AMV simulator is a tunable and flexible computer code that is able to simulate AMVs expected to be derived from different instruments and satellite orbit configurations. As a case study and example of the usefulness of this tool, the GMAO AMV simulator was used to simulate AMVs envisioned to be provided by the MISTiC Winds, a NASA mission concept consisting of a constellation of satellites equipped with infrared spectral midwave spectrometers, expected to provide high spatial and temporal resolution temperature and humidity soundings of the troposphere that can be used to derive AMVs from the tracking of clouds and water vapor features. The GMAO AMV simulator identifies trackable clouds and water vapor features in the G5NR and employs a probabilistic function to draw a subset of the identified trackable features. Before the simulator is applied to the MISTiC Winds concept, the simulator was calibrated to yield realistic observations counts and spatial distributions and validated considering as a proxy instrument to the MISTiC Winds the Himawari-8 Advanced Imager (AHI). The simulated AHI AMVs showed a close match with the real AHI AMVs in terms of observation counts and spatial distributions, showing that the GMAO AMVs simulator synthesizes AMVs observations with enough quality and realism to produce a response from the DAS equivalent to the one produced with real observations. When applied to the MISTiC Winds scanning points, it can be expected that the MISTiC Winds will be able to collect approximately 60,000 wind observations every 6 hours, if considering a constellation composed of

RSCAT_LEVEL_2B_OWV_COMP_12_V1.1:1

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — This dataset contains the RapidScat Level 2B 12.5km Version 1.1 science-quality ocean surface wind vectors. The Level 2B wind vectors are binned on a 12.5 km Wind...

PODAAC-RSX12-L2B11

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — This dataset contains the RapidScat Level 2B 12.5km Version 1.1 science-quality ocean surface wind vectors. The Level 2B wind vectors are binned on a 12.5 km Wind...

Vector regression introduced

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mok Tik

2014-06-01

Full Text Available This study formulates regression of vector data that will enable statistical analysis of various geodetic phenomena such as, polar motion, ocean currents, typhoon/hurricane tracking, crustal deformations, and precursory earthquake signals. The observed vector variable of an event (dependent vector variable is expressed as a function of a number of hypothesized phenomena realized also as vector variables (independent vector variables and/or scalar variables that are likely to impact the dependent vector variable. The proposed representation has the unique property of solving the coefficients of independent vector variables (explanatory variables also as vectors, hence it supersedes multivariate multiple regression models, in which the unknown coefficients are scalar quantities. For the solution, complex numbers are used to rep- resent vector information, and the method of least squares is deployed to estimate the vector model parameters after transforming the complex vector regression model into a real vector regression model through isomorphism. Various operational statistics for testing the predictive significance of the estimated vector parameter coefficients are also derived. A simple numerical example demonstrates the use of the proposed vector regression analysis in modeling typhoon paths.

Comparison of several measure-correlate-predict models using support vector regression techniques to estimate wind power densities. A case study

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Díaz, Santiago; Carta, José A.; Matías, José M.

2017-01-01

Highlights: • Eight measure-correlate-predict (MCP) models used to estimate the wind power densities (WPDs) at a target site are compared. • Support vector regressions are used as the main prediction techniques in the proposed MCPs. • The most precise MCP uses two sub-models which predict wind speed and air density in an unlinked manner. • The most precise model allows to construct a bivariable (wind speed and air density) WPD probability density function. • MCP models trained to minimise wind speed prediction error do not minimise WPD prediction error. - Abstract: The long-term annual mean wind power density (WPD) is an important indicator of wind as a power source which is usually included in regional wind resource maps as useful prior information to identify potentially attractive sites for the installation of wind projects. In this paper, a comparison is made of eight proposed Measure-Correlate-Predict (MCP) models to estimate the WPDs at a target site. Seven of these models use the Support Vector Regression (SVR) and the eighth the Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) technique, which serves as a basis to compare the performance of the other models. In addition, a wrapper technique with 10-fold cross-validation has been used to select the optimal set of input features for the SVR and MLR models. Some of the eight models were trained to directly estimate the mean hourly WPDs at a target site. Others, however, were firstly trained to estimate the parameters on which the WPD depends (i.e. wind speed and air density) and then, using these parameters, the target site mean hourly WPDs. The explanatory features considered are different combinations of the mean hourly wind speeds, wind directions and air densities recorded in 2014 at ten weather stations in the Canary Archipelago (Spain). The conclusions that can be drawn from the study undertaken include the argument that the most accurate method for the long-term estimation of WPDs requires the execution of a

Wind Velocity and Position Sensor-less Operation for PMSG Wind Generator

Science.gov (United States)

Senjyu, Tomonobu; Tamaki, Satoshi; Urasaki, Naomitsu; Uezato, Katsumi; Funabashi, Toshihisa; Fujita, Hideki

Electric power generation using non-conventional sources is receiving considerable attention throughout the world. Wind energy is one of the available non-conventional energy sources. Electrical power generation using wind energy is possible in two ways, viz. constant speed operation and variable speed operation using power electronic converters. Variable speed power generation is attractive, because maximum electric power can be generated at all wind velocities. However, this system requires a rotor speed sensor, for vector control purpose, which increases the cost of the system. To alleviate the need of rotor speed sensor in vector control, we propose a new sensor-less control of PMSG (Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generator) based on the flux linkage. We can estimate the rotor position using the estimated flux linkage. We use a first-order lag compensator to obtain the flux linkage. Furthermore‚we estimate wind velocity and rotation speed using a observer. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated thorough simulation results.

Maximum power extraction under different vector-control schemes and grid-synchronization strategy of a wind-driven Brushless Doubly-Fed Reluctance Generator.

Science.gov (United States)

Mousa, Mohamed G; Allam, S M; Rashad, Essam M

2018-01-01

This paper proposes an advanced strategy to synchronize the wind-driven Brushless Doubly-Fed Reluctance Generator (BDFRG) to the grid-side terminals. The proposed strategy depends mainly upon determining the electrical angle of the grid voltage, θ v and using the same transformation matrix of both the power winding and grid sides to ensure that the generated power-winding voltage has the same phase-sequence of the grid-side voltage. On the other hand, the paper proposes a vector-control (power-winding flux orientation) technique for maximum wind-power extraction under two schemes summarized as; unity power-factor operation and minimum converter-current. Moreover, a soft-starting method is suggested to avoid the employed converter over-current. The first control scheme is achieved by adjusting the command power-winding reactive power at zero for a unity power-factor operation. However, the second scheme depends on setting the command d-axis control-winding current at zero to maximize the ratio of the generator electromagnetic-torque per the converter current. This enables the system to get a certain command torque under minimum converter current. A sample of the obtained simulation and experimental results is presented to check the effectiveness of the proposed control strategies. Copyright © 2017 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Swell Propagation over Indian Ocean Region

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Suchandra A. Bhowmick

2011-06-01

Full Text Available Swells are the ocean surface gravity waves that have propagated out of their generating fetch to the distant coasts without significant attenuation. Therefore they contain a clear signature of the nature and intensity of wind at the generation location. This makes them a precursor to various atmospheric phenomena like distant storms, tropical cyclones, or even large scale sea breeze like monsoon. Since they are not affected by wind once they propagate out of their generating region, they cannot be described by regional wave models forced by local winds. However, their prediction is important, in particular, for ship routing and off shore structure designing. In the present work, the propagation of swell waves from the Southern Ocean and southern Indian Ocean to the central and northern Indian Ocean has been studied. For this purpose a spectral ocean Wave Model (WAM has been used to simulate significant wave height for 13 years from 1993–2005 using NCEP blended winds at a horizontal spatial resolution of 1° × 1°. It has been observed that Indian Ocean, with average wave height of approximately 2–3 m during July, is mostly dominated by swell waves generated predominantly under the extreme windy conditions prevailing over the Southern Ocean and southern Indian Ocean. In fact the swell waves reaching the Indian Ocean in early or mid May carry unique signatures of monsoon arriving over the Indian Subcontinent. Pre-monsoon month of April contains low swell waves ranging from 0.5–1 m. The amplitudes subsequently increase to approximately 1.5–2 meters around 7–15 days prior to the arrival of monsoon over the Indian Subcontinent. This embedded signature may be utilized as one of the important oceanographic precursor to the monsoon onset over the Indian Ocean.

An ocean current inversion accuracy analysis based on a Doppler spectrum model

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

BAO Qingliu; ZHANG Youguang; LIN Mingsen; GONG Peng

2017-01-01

Microwave remote sensing is one of the most useful methods for observing the ocean parameters.The Doppler frequency or interferometric phase of the radar echoes can be used for an ocean surface current speed retrieval,which is widely used in spaceborne and airborne radars.While the effect of the ocean currents and waves is interactional.It is impossible to retrieve the ocean surface current speed from Doppler frequency shift directly.In order to study the relationship between the ocean surface current speed and the Doppler frequency shift,a numerical ocean surface Doppler spectrum model is established and validated with a reference.The input parameters of ocean Doppler spectrum include an ocean wave elevation model,a directional distribution function,and wind speed and direction.The suitable ocean wave elevation spectrum and the directional distribution function are selected by comparing the ocean Doppler spectrum in C band with an empirical geophysical model function (CDOP).What is more,the error sensitivities of ocean surface current speed to the wind speed and direction are analyzed.All these simulations are in Ku band.The simulation results show that the ocean surface current speed error is sensitive to the wind speed and direction errors.With VV polarization,the ocean surface current speed error is about 0.15 m/s when the wind speed error is 2 m/s,and the ocean surface current speed error is smaller than 0.3 m/s when the wind direction error is within 20° in the cross wind direction.

Estimates of oceanic surface wind speed and direction using orthogonal beam scatterometer measurements and comparison of recent sea scattering theories

Science.gov (United States)

Moore, R. K.; Fung, A. K.; Dome, G. J.; Birrer, I. J.

1978-01-01

The wind direction properties of radar backscatter from the sea were empirically modelled using a cosine Fourier series through the 4th harmonic in wind direction (referenced to upwind). A comparison with 1975 JONSWAP (Joint North Sea Wave Project) scatterometer data, at incidence angles of 40 and 65, indicates that effects to third and fourth harmonics are negligible. Another important result is that the Fourier coefficients through the second harmonic are related to wind speed by a power law expression. A technique is also proposed to estimate the wind speed and direction over the ocean from two orthogonal scattering measurements. A comparison between two different types of sea scatter theories, one type presented by the work of Wright and the other by that of Chan and Fung, was made with recent scatterometer measurements. It demonstrates that a complete scattering model must include some provisions for the anisotropic characteristics of the sea scatter, and use a sea spectrum which depends upon wind speed.

Improving estimations of greenhouse gas transfer velocities by atmosphere-ocean couplers in Earth-System and regional models

Science.gov (United States)

Vieira, V. M. N. C. S.; Sahlée, E.; Jurus, P.; Clementi, E.; Pettersson, H.; Mateus, M.

2015-09-01

Earth-System and regional models, forecasting climate change and its impacts, simulate atmosphere-ocean gas exchanges using classical yet too simple generalizations relying on wind speed as the sole mediator while neglecting factors as sea-surface agitation, atmospheric stability, current drag with the bottom, rain and surfactants. These were proved fundamental for accurate estimates, particularly in the coastal ocean, where a significant part of the atmosphere-ocean greenhouse gas exchanges occurs. We include several of these factors in a customizable algorithm proposed for the basis of novel couplers of the atmospheric and oceanographic model components. We tested performances with measured and simulated data from the European coastal ocean, having found our algorithm to forecast greenhouse gas exchanges largely different from the forecasted by the generalization currently in use. Our algorithm allows calculus vectorization and parallel processing, improving computational speed roughly 12× in a single cpu core, an essential feature for Earth-System models applications.

Statistical analysis of dispersion relations in turbulent solar wind fluctuations using Cluster data

Science.gov (United States)

Perschke, C.; Narita, Y.

2012-12-01

Multi-spacecraft measurements enable us to resolve three-dimensional spatial structures without assuming Taylor's frozen-in-flow hypothesis. This is very useful to study frequency-wave vector diagram in solar wind turbulence through direct determination of three-dimensional wave vectors. The existence and evolution of dispersion relation and its role in fully-developed plasma turbulence have been drawing attention of physicists, in particular, if solar wind turbulence represents kinetic Alfvén or whistler mode as the carrier of spectral energy among different scales through wave-wave interactions. We investigate solar wind intervals of Cluster data for various flow velocities with a high-resolution wave vector analysis method, Multi-point Signal Resonator technique, at the tetrahedral separation about 100 km. Magnetic field data and ion data are used to determine the frequency- wave vector diagrams in the co-moving frame of the solar wind. We find primarily perpendicular wave vectors in solar wind turbulence which justify the earlier discussions about kinetic Alfvén or whistler wave. The frequency- wave vector diagrams confirm (a) wave vector anisotropy and (b) scattering in frequencies.

Early stages of wind wave and drift current generation under non-stationary wind conditions.

Science.gov (United States)

Robles-Diaz, Lucia; Ocampo-Torres, Francisco J.; Branger, Hubert

2016-04-01

Generation and amplification mechanisms of ocean waves are well understood under constant wind speed or limited fetch conditions. Under these situations, the momentum and energy transfers from air to water are also quite well known. However during the wind field evolution over the ocean, we may observe sometime high wind acceleration/deceleration situations (e.g. Mexican Tehuano or Mediterranean Mistral wind systems). The evolution of wave systems under these conditions is not well understood. The purpose of these laboratory experiments is to better understand the early stages of water-waves and surface-drift currents under non-stationary wind conditions and to determine the balance between transfers creating waves and surface currents during non-equilibrium situations. The experiments were conducted in the Institut Pythéas wind-wave facility in Marseille-France. The wave tank is 40 m long, 2.7 m wide and 1 m deep. The air section is 50 m long, 3 m wide and 1.8 m height. We used 11 different resistive wave-gauges located along the tank. The momentum fluxes in the air column were estimated from single and X hot-film anemometer measurements. The sampling frequency for wind velocity and surface displacement measurements was 256 Hz. Water-current measurements were performed with a profiling velocimeter. This device measures the first 3.5 cm of the water column with a frequency rate of 100Hz. During the experiments, the wind intensity was abruptly modified with a constant acceleration and deceleration over time. We observed that wind drag coefficient values for accelerated wind periods are lower than the ones reported in previous studies for constant wind speed (Large and Pond 1981; Ocampo-Torres et al. 2010; Smith 1980; Yelland and Taylor 1996). This is probably because the turbulent boundary layer is not completely developed during the increasing-wind sequence. As it was reported in some theoretical studies (Miles 1957; Phillips 1957; Kahma and Donelan 1988), we

Ocean-Atmosphere Interaction in Climate Changes

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, W. Timothy

1999-01-01

The diagram, which attests the El Nino teleconnection observed by the NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT) in 1997, is an example of the results of our research in air-sea interaction - the core component of our three-part contribution to the Climate Variability Program. We have established an interplay among scientific research, which turns spacebased data into knowledge, a push in instrument technology, which improves observations of climate variability, and an information system, which produces and disseminates new data to support our scientific research. Timothy Liu led the proposal for advanced technology, in response to the NASA Post-2002 Request for Information. The sensor was identified as a possible mission for continuous ocean surface wind measurement at higher spatial resolution, and with the unique capability to measure ocean surface salinity. He is participating in the Instrument Incubator Program to improve the antenna technology, and is initiating a study to integrate the concept on Japanese missions. He and his collaborators have set up a system to produce and disseminate high level (gridded) ocean surface wind/stress data from NSCAT and European missions. The data system is being expanded to produce real-time gridded ocean surface winds from Quikscat, and precipitation and evaporation from the Tropical Rain Measuring Mission. It will form the basis for a spacebased data analysis system which will include momentum, heat and water fluxes. The study on 1997 El Nino teleconnection illustrates our interdisciplinary and multisensor approach to study climate variability. The diagram shows that the collapse of trade wind and the westerly wind anomalies in the central equatorial Pacific led to the equatorial ocean warming. The equatorial wind anomalies are connected to the anomalous cyclonic wind pattern in the northeast Pacific. The anomalous warming along the west coast of the United States is the result of the movement of the pre-existing warm sea surface

QuikSCAT and SSM/I ocean surface winds for wind energy

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hasager, Charlotte Bay; Astrup, Poul; Nielsen, Per

2007-01-01

-European mid-latitudes and in the Atlantic trade belt zone are compared. Distinct differences are identified and these agree well with independent data from meteorological masts in the two regions. Seven years of twice daily observations from QuikSCAT are used for the offshore wind resource assessment. Wind...

SAT-WIND project. Final report[Winds from satellites for offshore and coastal wind energy mapping and wind-indexing

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hasager, C.B.; Astrup, P.; Nielsen, M. (and others)

2007-04-15

The SAT-WIND project 'Winds from satellites for offshore and coastal wind energy mapping and wind-indexing' was a research project funded by STVF/DSF in the years 2003 to 2006 (Sagsnr. 2058-03-0006). The goal of the project was to verify the applicability of satellite wind maps derived from passive microwave, altimeter, scatterometer and imaging Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) technologies for wind energy tools for wind resources and wind-indexing. The study area was the Danish Seas including the North Sea, interior seas and the Baltic Sea. The report describes technical details on the satellite data sources including: 1) passive microwave (SSM/I, AMSR-E), 2) passive microwave polarimetric (WindSat), 3) scatterometer (ERS, QuikSCAT, Midori-2 and NSCAT), 4) altimeter (ERS, Topex, Poseidon, GFO-1, Jason-1), 5) SAR (ERS, Envisat). The SAR wind maps were treated in S-WAsP developed by Risoe National Laboratory in cooperation with GRAS A/S in the innovative project SAT-WIND-SMV (Sagsnr. 2104-05-0084) in the years 2005 and 2006 in parallel with SAT-WIND. The results from the SAT-WIND project are presented. These include ocean wind statistics, offshore wind resource estimates and comparison results for wind-indexing. (au)

SAT-WIND project. Final report[Winds from satellites for offshore and coastal wind energy mapping and wind-indexing

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hasager, C B; Astrup, P; Nielsen, M [and others

2007-04-15

The SAT-WIND project 'Winds from satellites for offshore and coastal wind energy mapping and wind-indexing' was a research project funded by STVF/DSF in the years 2003 to 2006 (Sagsnr. 2058-03-0006). The goal of the project was to verify the applicability of satellite wind maps derived from passive microwave, altimeter, scatterometer and imaging Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) technologies for wind energy tools for wind resources and wind-indexing. The study area was the Danish Seas including the North Sea, interior seas and the Baltic Sea. The report describes technical details on the satellite data sources including: 1) passive microwave (SSM/I, AMSR-E), 2) passive microwave polarimetric (WindSat), 3) scatterometer (ERS, QuikSCAT, Midori-2 and NSCAT), 4) altimeter (ERS, Topex, Poseidon, GFO-1, Jason-1), 5) SAR (ERS, Envisat). The SAR wind maps were treated in S-WAsP developed by Risoe National Laboratory in cooperation with GRAS A/S in the innovative project SAT-WIND-SMV (Sagsnr. 2104-05-0084) in the years 2005 and 2006 in parallel with SAT-WIND. The results from the SAT-WIND project are presented. These include ocean wind statistics, offshore wind resource estimates and comparison results for wind-indexing. (au)

Effects of Sea-Surface Waves and Ocean Spray on Air-Sea Momentum Fluxes

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Ting; Song, Jinbao

2018-04-01

The effects of sea-surface waves and ocean spray on the marine atmospheric boundary layer (MABL) at different wind speeds and wave ages were investigated. An MABL model was developed that introduces a wave-induced component and spray force to the total surface stress. The theoretical model solution was determined assuming the eddy viscosity coefficient varied linearly with height above the sea surface. The wave-induced component was evaluated using a directional wave spectrum and growth rate. Spray force was described using interactions between ocean-spray droplets and wind-velocity shear. Wind profiles and sea-surface drag coefficients were calculated for low to high wind speeds for wind-generated sea at different wave ages to examine surface-wave and ocean-spray effects on MABL momentum distribution. The theoretical solutions were compared with model solutions neglecting wave-induced stress and/or spray stress. Surface waves strongly affected near-surface wind profiles and sea-surface drag coefficients at low to moderate wind speeds. Drag coefficients and near-surface wind speeds were lower for young than for old waves. At high wind speeds, ocean-spray droplets produced by wind-tearing breaking-wave crests affected the MABL strongly in comparison with surface waves, implying that wave age affects the MABL only negligibly. Low drag coefficients at high wind caused by ocean-spray production increased turbulent stress in the sea-spray generation layer, accelerating near-sea-surface wind. Comparing the analytical drag coefficient values with laboratory measurements and field observations indicated that surface waves and ocean spray significantly affect the MABL at different wind speeds and wave ages.

LIGHT SCATTERING FROM EXOPLANET OCEANS AND ATMOSPHERES

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zugger, M. E.; Kane, T. J.; Kasting, J. F.; Williams, D. M.; Philbrick, C. R.

2010-01-01

Orbital variation in reflected starlight from exoplanets could eventually be used to detect surface oceans. Exoplanets with rough surfaces, or dominated by atmospheric Rayleigh scattering, should reach peak brightness in full phase, orbital longitude (OL) = 180 0 , whereas ocean planets with transparent atmospheres should reach peak brightness in crescent phase near OL = 30 0 . Application of Fresnel theory to a planet with no atmosphere covered by a calm ocean predicts a peak polarization fraction of 1 at OL = 74 0 ; however, our model shows that clouds, wind-driven waves, aerosols, absorption, and Rayleigh scattering in the atmosphere and within the water column dilute the polarization fraction and shift the peak to other OLs. Observing at longer wavelengths reduces the obfuscation of the water polarization signature by Rayleigh scattering but does not mitigate the other effects. Planets with thick Rayleigh scattering atmospheres reach peak polarization near OL = 90 0 , but clouds and Lambertian surface scattering dilute and shift this peak to smaller OL. A shifted Rayleigh peak might be mistaken for a water signature unless data from multiple wavelength bands are available. Our calculations suggest that polarization alone may not positively identify the presence of an ocean under an Earth-like atmosphere; however, polarization adds another dimension which can be used, in combination with unpolarized orbital light curves and contrast ratios, to detect extrasolar oceans, atmospheric water aerosols, and water clouds. Additionally, the presence and direction of the polarization vector could be used to determine planet association with the star, and constrain orbit inclination.

An Improved Local Gradient Method for Sea Surface Wind Direction Retrieval from SAR Imagery

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lizhang Zhou

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Sea surface wind affects the fluxes of energy, mass and momentum between the atmosphere and ocean, and therefore regional and global weather and climate. With various satellite microwave sensors, sea surface wind can be measured with large spatial coverage in almost all-weather conditions, day or night. Like any other remote sensing measurements, sea surface wind measurement is also indirect. Therefore, it is important to develop appropriate wind speed and direction retrieval models for different types of microwave instruments. In this paper, a new sea surface wind direction retrieval method from synthetic aperture radar (SAR imagery is developed. In the method, local gradients are computed in frequency domain by combining the operation of smoothing and computing local gradients in one step to simplify the process and avoid the difference approximation. This improved local gradients (ILG method is compared with the traditional two-dimensional fast Fourier transform (2D FFT method and local gradients (LG method, using interpolating wind directions from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF reanalysis data and the Cross-Calibrated Multi-Platform (CCMP wind vector product. The sensitivities to the salt-and-pepper noise, the additive noise and the multiplicative noise are analyzed. The ILG method shows a better performance of retrieval wind directions than the other two methods.

How well does wind speed predict air-sea gas transfer in the sea ice zone? A synthesis of radon deficit profiles in the upper water column of the Arctic Ocean

Science.gov (United States)

Loose, B.; Kelly, R. P.; Bigdeli, A.; Williams, W.; Krishfield, R.; Rutgers van der Loeff, M.; Moran, S. B.

2017-05-01

We present 34 profiles of radon-deficit from the ice-ocean boundary layer of the Beaufort Sea. Including these 34, there are presently 58 published radon-deficit estimates of air-sea gas transfer velocity (k) in the Arctic Ocean; 52 of these estimates were derived from water covered by 10% sea ice or more. The average value of k collected since 2011 is 4.0 ± 1.2 m d-1. This exceeds the quadratic wind speed prediction of weighted kws = 2.85 m d-1 with mean-weighted wind speed of 6.4 m s-1. We show how ice cover changes the mixed-layer radon budget, and yields an "effective gas transfer velocity." We use these 58 estimates to statistically evaluate the suitability of a wind speed parameterization for k, when the ocean surface is ice covered. Whereas the six profiles taken from the open ocean indicate a statistically good fit to wind speed parameterizations, the same parameterizations could not reproduce k from the sea ice zone. We conclude that techniques for estimating k in the open ocean cannot be similarly applied to determine k in the presence of sea ice. The magnitude of k through gaps in the ice may reach high values as ice cover increases, possibly as a result of focused turbulence dissipation at openings in the free surface. These 58 profiles are presently the most complete set of estimates of k across seasons and variable ice cover; as dissolved tracer budgets they reflect air-sea gas exchange with no impact from air-ice gas exchange.

Oceanic and atmospheric conditions associated with the pentad rainfall over the southeastern peninsular India during the North-East Indian Monsoon season

Science.gov (United States)

Shanmugasundaram, Jothiganesh; Lee, Eungul

2018-03-01

The association of North-East Indian Monsoon rainfall (NEIMR) over the southeastern peninsular India with the oceanic and atmospheric conditions over the adjacent ocean regions at pentad time step (five days period) was investigated during the months of October to December for the period 1985-2014. The non-parametric correlation and composite analyses were carried out for the simultaneous and lagged time steps (up to four lags) of oceanic and atmospheric variables with pentad NEIMR. The results indicated that NEIMR was significantly correlated: 1) positively with both sea surface temperature (SST) led by 1-4 pentads (lag 1-4 time steps) and latent heat flux (LHF) during the simultaneous, lag 1 and 2 time steps over the equatorial western Indian Ocean, 2) positively with SST but negatively with LHF (less heat flux from ocean to atmosphere) during the same and all the lagged time steps over the Bay of Bengal. Consistently, during the wet NEIMR pentads over the southeastern peninsular India, SST significantly increased over the Bay of Bengal during all the time steps and the equatorial western Indian Ocean during the lag 2-4 time steps, while the LHF decreased over the Bay of Bengal (all time steps) and increased over the Indian Ocean (same, lag 1 and 2). The investigation on ocean-atmospheric interaction revealed that the enhanced LHF over the equatorial western Indian Ocean was related to increased atmospheric moisture demand and increased wind speed, whereas the reduced LHF over the Bay of Bengal was associated with decreased atmospheric moisture demand and decreased wind speed. The vertically integrated moisture flux and moisture transport vectors from 1000 to 850 hPa exhibited that the moisture was carried away from the equatorial western Indian Ocean to the strong moisture convergence regions of the Bay of Bengal during the same and lag 1 time steps of wet NEIMR pentads. Further, the moisture over the Bay of Bengal was transported to the southeastern peninsular

Parameterized and resolved Southern Ocean eddy compensation

Science.gov (United States)

Poulsen, Mads B.; Jochum, Markus; Nuterman, Roman

2018-04-01

The ability to parameterize Southern Ocean eddy effects in a forced coarse resolution ocean general circulation model is assessed. The transient model response to a suite of different Southern Ocean wind stress forcing perturbations is presented and compared to identical experiments performed with the same model in 0.1° eddy-resolving resolution. With forcing of present-day wind stress magnitude and a thickness diffusivity formulated in terms of the local stratification, it is shown that the Southern Ocean residual meridional overturning circulation in the two models is different in structure and magnitude. It is found that the difference in the upper overturning cell is primarily explained by an overly strong subsurface flow in the parameterized eddy-induced circulation while the difference in the lower cell is mainly ascribed to the mean-flow overturning. With a zonally constant decrease of the zonal wind stress by 50% we show that the absolute decrease in the overturning circulation is insensitive to model resolution, and that the meridional isopycnal slope is relaxed in both models. The agreement between the models is not reproduced by a 50% wind stress increase, where the high resolution overturning decreases by 20%, but increases by 100% in the coarse resolution model. It is demonstrated that this difference is explained by changes in surface buoyancy forcing due to a reduced Antarctic sea ice cover, which strongly modulate the overturning response and ocean stratification. We conclude that the parameterized eddies are able to mimic the transient response to altered wind stress in the high resolution model, but partly misrepresent the unperturbed Southern Ocean meridional overturning circulation and associated heat transports.

Directional Bias of TAO Daily Buoy Wind Vectors in the Central Equatorial Pacific Ocean from November 2008 to January 2010

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ge Peng

2014-07-01

Full Text Available This article documents a systematic bias in surface wind directions between the TAO buoy measurements at 0°, 170°W and the ECMWF analysis and forecasts. This bias was of the order 10° and persisted from November 2008 to January 2010, which was consistent with a post-recovery calibration drift in the anemometer vane. Unfortunately, the calibration drift was too time-variant to be used to correct the data so the quality flag for this deployment was adjusted to reflect low data quality. The primary purpose of this paper is to inform users in the modelling and remote-sensing community about this systematic, persistent wind directional bias, which will allow users to make an educated decision on using the data and be aware of its potential impact to their downstream product quality. The uncovering of this bias and its source demonstrates the importance of continuous scientific oversight and effective user-data provider communication in stewarding scientific data. It also suggests the need for improvement in the ability of buoy data quality control procedures of the TAO and ECMWF systems to detect future wind directional systematic biases such as the one described here.

Arctic Ice-Ocean Coupling and Gyre Equilibration Observed With Remote Sensing

Science.gov (United States)

Dewey, Sarah; Morison, James; Kwok, Ronald; Dickinson, Suzanne; Morison, David; Andersen, Roger

2018-02-01

Model and observational evidence has shown that ocean current speeds in the Beaufort Gyre have increased and recently stabilized. Because these currents rival ice drift speeds, we examine the potential for the Beaufort Gyre's shift from a system in which the wind drives the ice and the ice drives a passive ocean to one in which the ocean often, in the absence of high winds, drives the ice. The resultant stress exerted on the ocean by the ice and the resultant Ekman pumping are reversed, without any change in average wind stress curl. Through these curl reversals, the ice-ocean stress provides a key feedback in Beaufort Gyre stabilization. This manuscript constitutes one of the first observational studies of ice-ocean stress inclusive of geostrophic ocean currents, by making use of recently available remote sensing data.

Fluid-structure interaction simulation of floating structures interacting with complex, large-scale ocean waves and atmospheric turbulence with application to floating offshore wind turbines

Science.gov (United States)

Calderer, Antoni; Guo, Xin; Shen, Lian; Sotiropoulos, Fotis

2018-02-01

We develop a numerical method for simulating coupled interactions of complex floating structures with large-scale ocean waves and atmospheric turbulence. We employ an efficient large-scale model to develop offshore wind and wave environmental conditions, which are then incorporated into a high resolution two-phase flow solver with fluid-structure interaction (FSI). The large-scale wind-wave interaction model is based on a two-fluid dynamically-coupled approach that employs a high-order spectral method for simulating the water motion and a viscous solver with undulatory boundaries for the air motion. The two-phase flow FSI solver is based on the level set method and is capable of simulating the coupled dynamic interaction of arbitrarily complex bodies with airflow and waves. The large-scale wave field solver is coupled with the near-field FSI solver with a one-way coupling approach by feeding into the latter waves via a pressure-forcing method combined with the level set method. We validate the model for both simple wave trains and three-dimensional directional waves and compare the results with experimental and theoretical solutions. Finally, we demonstrate the capabilities of the new computational framework by carrying out large-eddy simulation of a floating offshore wind turbine interacting with realistic ocean wind and waves.

Wind scatterometry with improved ambiguity selection and rain modeling

Science.gov (United States)

Draper, David Willis

Although generally accurate, the quality of SeaWinds on QuikSCAT scatterometer ocean vector winds is compromised by certain natural phenomena and retrieval algorithm limitations. This dissertation addresses three main contributors to scatterometer estimate error: poor ambiguity selection, estimate uncertainty at low wind speeds, and rain corruption. A quality assurance (QA) analysis performed on SeaWinds data suggests that about 5% of SeaWinds data contain ambiguity selection errors and that scatterometer estimation error is correlated with low wind speeds and rain events. Ambiguity selection errors are partly due to the "nudging" step (initialization from outside data). A sophisticated new non-nudging ambiguity selection approach produces generally more consistent wind than the nudging method in moderate wind conditions. The non-nudging method selects 93% of the same ambiguities as the nudged data, validating both techniques, and indicating that ambiguity selection can be accomplished without nudging. Variability at low wind speeds is analyzed using tower-mounted scatterometer data. According to theory, below a threshold wind speed, the wind fails to generate the surface roughness necessary for wind measurement. A simple analysis suggests the existence of the threshold in much of the tower-mounted scatterometer data. However, the backscatter does not "go to zero" beneath the threshold in an uncontrolled environment as theory suggests, but rather has a mean drop and higher variability below the threshold. Rain is the largest weather-related contributor to scatterometer error, affecting approximately 4% to 10% of SeaWinds data. A simple model formed via comparison of co-located TRMM PR and SeaWinds measurements characterizes the average effect of rain on SeaWinds backscatter. The model is generally accurate to within 3 dB over the tropics. The rain/wind backscatter model is used to simultaneously retrieve wind and rain from SeaWinds measurements. The simultaneous

3D wake measurements from a scanning wind lidar in combination with a fast wind field reconstruction model

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mikkelsen, Torben Krogh; Herges, T. G.; Astrup, Poul

2017-01-01

University of Denmark. The purpose of the SpinnerLidar measurements at SWIFT is to measure the response of a V27 turbine wake to varying inflow conditions and turbine operating states. Although our fast scanning SpinnerLidar is able to measure the line-of-sight projected wind speed at up to 400 points per......-Stokes CFD code “Lincom Cyclop-buster model,”3 the corresponding 3D wind vector field (u, v, w) can be reconstructed under constraints for conservation of mass and momentum. The resulting model calculated line-of-sight projections of the 3D wind velocity vectors will become consistent with the line...

Dynamic ocean topography from CryoSat-2: examining recent changes in ice-ocean stress and advancing a theory for Beaufort Gyre stabilization

Science.gov (United States)

Dewey, S.; Morison, J.; Kwok, R.; Dickinson, S.; Morison, D.; Andersen, R.

2017-12-01

Model and sparse observational evidence has shown the ocean current speed in the Beaufort Gyre to have increased and recently stabilized. However, full-basin altimetric observations of dynamic ocean topography (DOT) and ocean surface currents have yet to be applied to the dynamics of gyre stabilization. DOT fields from retracked CryoSat-2 retrievals in Arctic Ocean leads have enabled us to calculate 2-month average ocean geostrophic currents. These currents are crucial to accurately computing ice-ocean stress, especially because they have accelerated so that their speed rivals that of the overlying sea ice. Given these observations, we can shift our view of the Beaufort Gyre as a system in which the wind drives the ice and the ice drives a passive ocean to a system with the following feedback: After initial input of energy by wind, ice velocity decreases due to water drag and internal ice stress and the ocean drives the ice, reversing Ekman pumping and decelerating the gyre. This reversal changes the system from a persistently convergent regime to one in which freshwater is released from the gyre and doming of the gyre decreases, without any change in long-term average wind stress curl. Through these processes, the ice-ocean stress provides a key feedback in Beaufort Gyre stabilization.

Simulation of the Impact of New Aircraft- and Satellite-based Ocean Surface Wind Measurements on Estimates of Hurricane Intensity

Science.gov (United States)

Uhlhorn, Eric; Atlas, Robert; Black, Peter; Buckley, Courtney; Chen, Shuyi; El-Nimri, Salem; Hood, Robbie; Johnson, James; Jones, Linwood; Miller, Timothy;

Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (HIRAD) Observations of Brightness Temperatures and Ocean Surface Wind Speed and Rain Rate During NASA's GRIP and HS3 Campaigns

Science.gov (United States)

Miller, Timothy L.; James, M. W.; Roberts, J. B.; Jones, W. L.; Biswas, S.; Ruf, C. S.; Uhlhorn, E. W.; Atlas, R.; Black, P.; Albers, C.

2012-01-01

HIRAD flew on high-altitude aircraft over Earl and Karl during NASA s GRIP (Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes) campaign in August - September of 2010, and plans to fly over Atlantic tropical cyclones in September of 2012 as part of the Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) mission. HIRAD is a new C-band radiometer using a synthetic thinned array radiometer (STAR) technology to obtain spatial resolution of approximately 2 km, out to roughly 30 km each side of nadir. By obtaining measurements of emissions at 4, 5, 6, and 6.6 GHz, observations of ocean surface wind speed and rain rate can be retrieved. The physical retrieval technique has been used for many years by precursor instruments, including the Stepped Frequency Microwave Radiometer (SFMR), which has been flying on the NOAA and USAF hurricane reconnaissance aircraft for several years to obtain observations within a single footprint at nadir angle. Results from the flights during the GRIP and HS3 campaigns will be shown, including images of brightness temperatures, wind speed, and rain rate. Comparisons will be made with observations from other instruments on the campaigns, for which HIRAD observations are either directly comparable or are complementary. Features such as storm eye and eye-wall, location of storm wind and rain maxima, and indications of dynamical features such as the merging of a weaker outer wind/rain maximum with the main vortex may be seen in the data. Potential impacts on operational ocean surface wind analyses and on numerical weather forecasts will also be discussed.

On the role of atmospheric forcing on upper ocean physics in the Southern Ocean and biological impacts

Science.gov (United States)

Carranza, Magdalena M.

The Southern Ocean (SO) plays a key role in regulating climate by absorbing nearly half of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2). Both physical and biogeochemical processes contribute to the net CO2 sink. As a result of global warming and ozone depletion, westerly winds have increased, with consequences for upper ocean physics but little is known on how primary producers are expected to respond to changes in atmospheric forcing. This thesis addresses the impact of atmospheric forcing on upper ocean dynamics and phytoplankton bloom development in the SO on synoptic storm scales, combining a broad range of observations derived from satellites, reanalysis, profiling floats and Southern elephant seals. On atmospheric synoptic timescales (2-10 days), relevant for phytoplankton growth and accumulation, wind speed has a larger impact on satellite Chl-a variability than surface heat fluxes or wind stress curl. In summer, strong winds are linked to deep mixed layers, cold sea surface temperatures and enhanced satellite chlorophyll-a (Chl-a), which suggest wind-driven entrainment plays a role in sustaining phytoplankton blooms at the surface. Subsurface bio-optical data from floats and seals reveal deep Chl-a fluorescence maxima (DFM) are ubiquitous in summer and tend to sit at the base of the mixed layer, but can occur in all seasons. The fact that wind speed and Chl-a correlations are maximal at zero lag time (from daily data) and incubation experiments indicate phytoplankton growth occurs 3-4 days after iron addition, suggests high winds in summer entrain Chl-a from a subsurface maximum. Vertical profiles also reveal Chl-a fluorescence unevenness within hydrographically defined mixed layers, suggesting the biological timescales of adaptation through the light gradient (i.e. growth and/or photoacclimation) are often faster than mixing timescales, and periods of quiescence between storms are long enough for biological gradients to form within the homogeneous layer in density

Southern hemisphere low level wind circulation statistics from the Seasat scatterometer

Science.gov (United States)

Levy, Gad

1994-01-01

Analyses of remotely sensed low-level wind vector data over the Southern Ocean are performed. Five-day averages and monthly means are created and the month-to-month variability during the winter (July-September) of 1978 is investigated. The remotely sensed winds are compared to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (ABM) and the National Meteorological Center (NMC) surface analyses. In southern latitudes the remotely sensed winds are stronger than what the weather services' analyses suggest, indicating under-estimation by ABM and NMC in these regions. The evolution of the low-level jet and the major stormtracks during the season are studied and different flow regimes are identified. The large-scale variability of the meridional flow is studied with the aid of empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis. The dominance of quasi-stationary wave numbers 3,4, and 5 in the winter flows is evident in both the EOF analysis and the mean flow. The signature of an exceptionally strong blocking situation is evident in July and the special conditions leading to it are discussed. A very large intraseasonal variability with different flow regimes at different months is documented.

Aquantis C-Plane Ocean Current Turbine Project

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Fleming, Alex [Dehlsen Associates, LLC, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)

2015-09-16

The Aquantis 2.5 MW Ocean Current Generation Device technology developed by Dehlsen Associates, LLC (DA) is a derivation of wind power generating technology (a means of harnessing a slow moving fluid) adapted to the ocean environment. The Aquantis Project provides an opportunity for accelerated technological development and early commercialization, since it involves the joining of two mature disciplines: ocean engineering and wind turbine design. The Aquantis Current Plane (C-Plane) technology is an ocean current turbine designed to extract kinetic energy from a current flow. The technology is capable of achieving competitively priced, continuous, base-load, and reliable power generation from a source of renewable energy not before possible in this scale or form.

Wind mapping offshore in coastal Mediterranean area using SAR images

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Calaudi, Rosamaria; Arena, Felice; Badger, Merete

Satellite observations of the ocean surface from Synthetic Aperture Radars (SAR) provide information about the spatial wind variability over large areas. This is of special interest in the Mediterranean, where spatial wind information is only provided by sparse buoys, often with long periods...... of missing data. Here, we focus on evaluating the use of SAR for offshore wind mapping. Preliminary results from the analysis of SAR-based ocean winds in Mediterranean areas show interesting large scale wind flow features consistent with results from previous studies using numerical models and space borne...

Doppler Lidar Vector Retrievals and Atmospheric Data Visualization in Mixed/Augmented Reality

Science.gov (United States)

Cherukuru, Nihanth Wagmi

Environmental remote sensing has seen rapid growth in the recent years and Doppler wind lidars have gained popularity primarily due to their non-intrusive, high spatial and temporal measurement capabilities. While lidar applications early on, relied on the radial velocity measurements alone, most of the practical applications in wind farm control and short term wind prediction require knowledge of the vector wind field. Over the past couple of years, multiple works on lidars have explored three primary methods of retrieving wind vectors viz., using homogeneous windfield assumption, computationally extensive variational methods and the use of multiple Doppler lidars. Building on prior research, the current three-part study, first demonstrates the capabilities of single and dual Doppler lidar retrievals in capturing downslope windstorm-type flows occurring at Arizona's Barringer Meteor Crater as a part of the METCRAX II field experiment. Next, to address the need for a reliable and computationally efficient vector retrieval for adaptive wind farm control applications, a novel 2D vector retrieval based on a variational formulation was developed and applied on lidar scans from an offshore wind farm and validated with data from a cup and vane anemometer installed on a nearby research platform. Finally, a novel data visualization technique using Mixed Reality (MR)/ Augmented Reality (AR) technology is presented to visualize data from atmospheric sensors. MR is an environment in which the user's visual perception of the real world is enhanced with live, interactive, computer generated sensory input (in this case, data from atmospheric sensors like Doppler lidars). A methodology using modern game development platforms is presented and demonstrated with lidar retrieved wind fields. In the current study, the possibility of using this technology to visualize data from atmospheric sensors in mixed reality is explored and demonstrated with lidar retrieved wind fields as well as

Chikungunya Virus–Vector Interactions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lark L. Coffey

2014-11-01

Full Text Available Chikungunya virus (CHIKV is a mosquito-borne alphavirus that causes chikungunya fever, a severe, debilitating disease that often produces chronic arthralgia. Since 2004, CHIKV has emerged in Africa, Indian Ocean islands, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, causing millions of human infections. Central to understanding CHIKV emergence is knowledge of the natural ecology of transmission and vector infection dynamics. This review presents current understanding of CHIKV infection dynamics in mosquito vectors and its relationship to human disease emergence. The following topics are reviewed: CHIKV infection and vector life history traits including transmission cycles, genetic origins, distribution, emergence and spread, dispersal, vector competence, vector immunity and microbial interactions, and co-infection by CHIKV and other arboviruses. The genetics of vector susceptibility and host range changes, population heterogeneity and selection for the fittest viral genomes, dual host cycling and its impact on CHIKV adaptation, viral bottlenecks and intrahost diversity, and adaptive constraints on CHIKV evolution are also discussed. The potential for CHIKV re-emergence and expansion into new areas and prospects for prevention via vector control are also briefly reviewed.

Estonian wind climate

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kull, Ain

1999-01-01

Estonia is situated on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. This is a region with intensive cyclonic activity and therefore with a relatively high mean wind speed. Atmospheric circulation and its seasonal variation determine the general character of the Estonian wind regime over the Atlantic Ocean and Eurasia. However, the Baltic sea itself is a very important factor affecting wind climate, it has an especially strong influence on the wind regime in costal areas. The mean energy density (W/m 2 ) is a wind energy characteristic that is proportional to the third power of wind speed and describes energy available in a flow of air through a unit area. The mean energy density is a characteristic which has practical importance in regional assessment of snowdrift, storm damage and wind energy

Indian Ocean experiments with a coupled model

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wainer, I. [Sao Paulo, Univ. (Brazil). Dept. of Oceanography

1997-03-01

A coupled ocean-atmosphere model is used to investigate the equatorial Indian Ocean response to the seasonally varying monsoon winds. Special attention is given to the oceanic response to the spatial distribution and changes in direction of the zonal winds. The Indian Ocean is surrounded by an Asian land mass to the North and an African land mass to the West. The model extends latitudinally between 41 N and 41 S. The asymmetric atmospheric model is driven by a mass source/sink term that is proportional to the sea surface temperature (SST) over the oceans and the heat balance over the land. The ocean is modeled using the Anderson and McCreary reduced-gravity transport model that includes a prognostic equation for the SST. The coupled system is driven by the annual cycle as manifested by zonally symmetric and asymmetric land and ocean heating. They explored the different nature of the equatorial ocean response to various patterns of zonal wind stress forcing in order to isolate the impact of the remote response on the Somali current. The major conclusions are : i) the equatorial response is fundamentally different for easterlies and westerlies, ii) the impact of the remote forcing on the Somali current is a function of the annual cycle, iii) the size of the basin sets the phase of the interference of the remote forcing on the Somali current relative to the local forcing.

Vectorization of nuclear codes for atmospheric transport and exposure calculation of radioactive materials

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Asai, Kiyoshi; Shinozawa, Naohisa; Ishikawa, Hirohiko; Chino, Masamichi; Hayashi, Takashi

1983-02-01

Three computer codes MATHEW, ADPIC of LLNL and GAMPUL of JAERI for prediction of wind field, concentration and external exposure rate of airborne radioactive materials are vectorized and the results are presented. Using the continuous equation of incompressible flow as a constraint, the MATHEW calculates the three dimensional wind field by a variational method. Using the particle-in -cell method, the ADPIC calculates the advection and diffusion of radioactive materials in three dimensional wind field and terrain, and gives the concentration of the materials in each cell of the domain. The GAMPUL calculates the external exposure rate assuming Gaussian plume type distribution of concentration. The vectorized code MATHEW attained 7.8 times speedup by a vector processor FACOM230-75 APU. The ADPIC and GAMPUL are estimated to attain 1.5 and 4 times speedup respectively on CRAY-1 type vector processor. (author)

Modeling and analysis of doubly fed induction generator wind energy systems

CERN Document Server

Fan, Lingling

2015-01-01

Wind Energy Systems: Modeling, Analysis and Control with DFIG provides key information on machine/converter modelling strategies based on space vectors, complex vector, and further frequency-domain variables. It includes applications that focus on wind energy grid integration, with analysis and control explanations with examples. For those working in the field of wind energy integration examining the potential risk of stability is key, this edition looks at how wind energy is modelled, what kind of control systems are adopted, how it interacts with the grid, as well as suitable study

Using Particle Image Velocimetry to Measure the Wind in a Winnowing Chamber

OpenAIRE

Matsui, Masami; Inoue, Eiji; Kuwano, Tomoko; Mori, Ken; Furuno, Yuko

2003-01-01

The array of vectors for the winnowing wind in the threshing unit was investigated uding PIV in order to improve the winnowing accuracy. It is difficult to measure wind velocities at many points simultaneously using the anemometer. However, visualization of the winnowing wind was possible using the tracer and laser beam. Futhermore, The PIV method made it possible to measure an array of vectors for the winnowing wind. The results produced by PIV concurred with the results of conventional meth...

Wind energy applications of synthetic aperture radar

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Badger, Merete

Synthetic aperture radars (SAR), mounted on satellites or aircraft, have proven useful for ocean wind mapping. Wind speeds at the height 10 m may be retrieved from measurements of radar backscatter using empirical model functions. The resulting windfields are valuable in offshore wind energy plan...

Direct vector controlled six-phase asymmetrical induction motor with power balanced space vector PWM multilevel operation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Padmanaban, Sanjeevi Kumar; Grandi, Gabriele; Ojo, Joseph Olorunfemi

2016-01-01

In this paper, a six-phase (asymmetrical) machine is investigated, 300 phase displacement is set between two three-phase stator windings keeping deliberately in open-end configuration. Power supply consists of four classical three-phase voltage inverters (VSIs), each one connected to the open......-winding terminals. An original synchronous field oriented control (FOC) algorithm with three variables as degree of freedom is proposed, allowing power sharing among the four VSIs in symmetric/asymmetric conditions. A standard three-level space vector pulse width modulation (SVPWM) by nearest three vector (NTV......) approach was adopted for each couple of VSIs to operate as multilevel output voltage generators. The proposed power sharing algorithm is verified for the ac drive system by observing the dynamic behaviours in different set conditions by complete simulation modelling in software (Matlab...

UDE-based control of variable-speed wind turbine systems

Science.gov (United States)

Ren, Beibei; Wang, Yeqin; Zhong, Qing-Chang

2017-01-01

In this paper, the control of a PMSG (permanent magnet synchronous generator)-based variable-speed wind turbine system with a back-to-back converter is considered. The uncertainty and disturbance estimator (UDE)-based control approach is applied to the regulation of the DC-link voltage and the control of the RSC (rotor-side converter) and the GSC (grid-side converter). For the rotor-side controller, the UDE-based vector control is developed for the RSC with PMSG control to facilitate the application of the MPPT (maximum power point tracking) algorithm for the maximum wind energy capture. For the grid-side controller, the UDE-based vector control is developed to control the GSC with the power reference generated by a UDE-based DC-link voltage controller. Compared with the conventional vector control, the UDE-based vector control can achieve reliable current decoupling control with fast response. Moreover, the UDE-based DC-link voltage regulation can achieve stable DC-link voltage under model uncertainties and external disturbances, e.g. wind speed variations. The effectiveness of the proposed UDE-based control approach is demonstrated through extensive simulation studies in the presence of coupled dynamics, model uncertainties and external disturbances under varying wind speeds. The UDE-based control is able to generate more energy, e.g. by 5% for the wind profile tested.

Pitchcontrol of wind turbines using model free adaptivecontrol based on wind turbine code

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zhang, Yunqian; Chen, Zhe; Cheng, Ming

2011-01-01

value is only based on I/O data of the wind turbine is identified and then the wind turbine system is replaced by a dynamic linear time-varying model. In order to verify the correctness and robustness of the proposed model free adaptive pitch controller, the wind turbine code FAST which can predict......As the wind turbine is a nonlinear high-order system, to achieve good pitch control performance, model free adaptive control (MFAC) approach which doesn't need the mathematical model of the wind turbine is adopted in the pitch control system in this paper. A pseudo gradient vector whose estimation...... the wind turbine loads and response in high accuracy is used. The results show that the controller produces good dynamic performance, good robustness and adaptability....

Short-Term Wind Speed Forecasting Using the Data Processing Approach and the Support Vector Machine Model Optimized by the Improved Cuckoo Search Parameter Estimation Algorithm

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chen Wang

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Power systems could be at risk when the power-grid collapse accident occurs. As a clean and renewable resource, wind energy plays an increasingly vital role in reducing air pollution and wind power generation becomes an important way to produce electrical power. Therefore, accurate wind power and wind speed forecasting are in need. In this research, a novel short-term wind speed forecasting portfolio has been proposed using the following three procedures: (I data preprocessing: apart from the regular normalization preprocessing, the data are preprocessed through empirical model decomposition (EMD, which reduces the effect of noise on the wind speed data; (II artificially intelligent parameter optimization introduction: the unknown parameters in the support vector machine (SVM model are optimized by the cuckoo search (CS algorithm; (III parameter optimization approach modification: an improved parameter optimization approach, called the SDCS model, based on the CS algorithm and the steepest descent (SD method is proposed. The comparison results show that the simple and effective portfolio EMD-SDCS-SVM produces promising predictions and has better performance than the individual forecasting components, with very small root mean squared errors and mean absolute percentage errors.

Retrieving Temperature Anomaly in the Global Subsurface and Deeper Ocean From Satellite Observations

Science.gov (United States)

Su, Hua; Li, Wene; Yan, Xiao-Hai

2018-01-01

Retrieving the subsurface and deeper ocean (SDO) dynamic parameters from satellite observations is crucial for effectively understanding ocean interior anomalies and dynamic processes, but it is challenging to accurately estimate the subsurface thermal structure over the global scale from sea surface parameters. This study proposes a new approach based on Random Forest (RF) machine learning to retrieve subsurface temperature anomaly (STA) in the global ocean from multisource satellite observations including sea surface height anomaly (SSHA), sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA), sea surface salinity anomaly (SSSA), and sea surface wind anomaly (SSWA) via in situ Argo data for RF training and testing. RF machine-learning approach can accurately retrieve the STA in the global ocean from satellite observations of sea surface parameters (SSHA, SSTA, SSSA, SSWA). The Argo STA data were used to validate the accuracy and reliability of the results from the RF model. The results indicated that SSHA, SSTA, SSSA, and SSWA together are useful parameters for detecting SDO thermal information and obtaining accurate STA estimations. The proposed method also outperformed support vector regression (SVR) in global STA estimation. It will be a useful technique for studying SDO thermal variability and its role in global climate system from global-scale satellite observations.

The turning of the wind in the atmospheric boundary layer

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pena Diaz, Alfredo; Gryning, Sven-Erik; Floors, Rogier Ralph

2014-01-01

Here we use accurate observations of the wind speed vector to analyze the behavior with height of the wind direction. The observations are a combination of tall meteorological mast and long-range wind lidar measurements covering the entire atmospheric boundary layer. The observations were performed...... winds underpredict the turning of the wind and the boundary-layer winds in general....

Electrostatic Solitary Waves in the Solar Wind: Evidence for Instability at Solar Wind Current Sheets

Science.gov (United States)

Malaspina, David M.; Newman, David L.; Wilson, Lynn Bruce; Goetz, Keith; Kellogg, Paul J.; Kerstin, Kris

2013-01-01

A strong spatial association between bipolar electrostatic solitary waves (ESWs) and magnetic current sheets (CSs) in the solar wind is reported here for the first time. This association requires that the plasma instabilities (e.g., Buneman, electron two stream) which generate ESWs are preferentially localized to solar wind CSs. Distributions of CS properties (including shear angle, thickness, solar wind speed, and vector magnetic field change) are examined for differences between CSs associated with ESWs and randomly chosen CSs. Possible mechanisms for producing ESW-generating instabilities at solar wind CSs are considered, including magnetic reconnection.

Dynamics of the Solar Wind Electromagnetic Energy Transmission Into Magnetosphere during Large Geomagnetic Storms

Science.gov (United States)

Kuznetsova, Tamara; Laptukhov, Alexej; Petrov, Valery

Causes of the geomagnetic activity (GA) in the report are divided into temporal changes of the solar wind parameters and the changes of the geomagnetic moment orientation relative directions of the solar wind electric and magnetic fields. Based on our previous study we concluded that a reconnection based on determining role of mutual orientation of the solar wind electric field and geomagnetic moment taking into account effects of the Earth's orbital and daily motions is the most effective compared with existing mechanisms. At present a reconnection as paradigma that has applications in broad fields of physics needs analysis of experimental facts to be developed. In terms of reconnection it is important not only mutual orientation of vectors describing physics of interaction region but and reconnection rate which depends from rate of energy flux to those regions where the reconnection is permitted. Applied to magnetosphere these regions first of all are dayside magnetopause and polar caps. Influence of rate of the energy flux to the lobe magnetopause (based on calculations of the Poyting electromagnetic flux component controlling the reconnection rate along the solar wind velocity Pv) on planetary GA (Dst, Kp indices) is investigated at different phases of geomagnetic storms. We study also the rate of energy flux to the polar caps during storms (based on calculations of the Poyting flux vector component along the geomagnetic moment Pm) and its influence on magnetic activity in the polar ionosphere: at the auroral zone (AU,AL indices). Results allow to evaluate contributions of high and low latitude sources of electromagnetic energy to the storm development and also to clear mechanism of the electromagnetic energy transmission from the solar wind to the magnetosphere. We evaluate too power of the solar wind electromagnetic energy during well-known large storms and compare result with power of the energy sources of other geophysical processes (atmosphere, ocean

Current meter, phytoplankton, and wind data from moored current meter casts and other instruments in the North Pacific Ocean as part of the Deep Ocean Mining and Environmental Study (DOMES) project, 1975-08-29 to 1977-02-24 (NODC Accession 7700458)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Current meter, phytoplankton, and wind data were collected using moored current meter casts and other instruments in the Gulf of Mexico from August 29, 1975 to...

Ocean's response to Hurricane Frances and its implications for drag coefficient parameterization at high wind speeds

KAUST Repository

Zedler, S. E.

2009-04-25

The drag coefficient parameterization of wind stress is investigated for tropical storm conditions using model sensitivity studies. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Ocean General Circulation Model was run in a regional setting with realistic stratification and forcing fields representing Hurricane Frances, which in early September 2004 passed east of the Caribbean Leeward Island chain. The model was forced with a NOAA-HWIND wind speed product after converting it to wind stress using four different drag coefficient parameterizations. Respective model results were tested against in situ measurements of temperature profiles and velocity, available from an array of 22 surface drifters and 12 subsurface floats. Changing the drag coefficient parameterization from one that saturated at a value of 2.3 × 10 -3 to a constant drag coefficient of 1.2 × 10-3 reduced the standard deviation difference between the simulated minus the measured sea surface temperature change from 0.8°C to 0.3°C. Additionally, the standard deviation in the difference between simulated minus measured high pass filtered 15-m current speed reduced from 15 cm/s to 5 cm/s. The maximum difference in sea surface temperature response when two different turbulent mixing parameterizations were implemented was 0.3°C, i.e., only 11% of the maximum change of sea surface temperature caused by the storm. Copyright 2009 by the American Geophysical Union.

Active and Passive Hybrid Sensor

Science.gov (United States)

Carswell, James R.

2010-01-01

A hybrid ocean wind sensor (HOWS) can map ocean vector wind in low to hurricane-level winds, and non-precipitating and precipitating conditions. It can acquire active and passive measurements through a single aperture at two wavelengths, two polarizations, and multiple incidence angles. Its low profile, compact geometry, and low power consumption permits installation on air craft platforms, including high-altitude unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

Ocean energy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2006-01-01

This annual evaluation is a synthesis of works published in 2006. Comparisons are presented between the wind power performances and European Commission White Paper and Biomass action plan objectives. The sector covers the energy exploitation of all energy flows specifically supplied by the seas and oceans. At present, most efforts in both research and development and in experimental implementation are concentrated on tidal currents and wave power. 90% of today worldwide ocean energy production is represented by a single site: the Rance Tidal Power Plant. Ocean energies must face up two challenges: progress has to be made in finalizing and perfecting technologies and costs must be brought under control. (A.L.B.)

Indian Ocean warming modulates Pacific climate change.

Science.gov (United States)

Luo, Jing-Jia; Sasaki, Wataru; Masumoto, Yukio

2012-11-13

It has been widely believed that the tropical Pacific trade winds weakened in the last century and would further decrease under a warmer climate in the 21st century. Recent high-quality observations, however, suggest that the tropical Pacific winds have actually strengthened in the past two decades. Precise causes of the recent Pacific climate shift are uncertain. Here we explore how the enhanced tropical Indian Ocean warming in recent decades favors stronger trade winds in the western Pacific via the atmosphere and hence is likely to have contributed to the La Niña-like state (with enhanced east-west Walker circulation) through the Pacific ocean-atmosphere interactions. Further analysis, based on 163 climate model simulations with centennial historical and projected external radiative forcing, suggests that the Indian Ocean warming relative to the Pacific's could play an important role in modulating the Pacific climate changes in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Seasonal cooling and blooming in tropical oceans

Science.gov (United States)

Longhurst, Alan

1993-11-01

The relative importance of tropical pelagic algal blooms in not yet fully appreciated and the way they are induced not well understood. The tropical Atlantic supports pelagic blooms together equivalent to the North Atlantic spring bloom. These blooms are driven by thermocline tilting, curl of wind stress and eddy upwelling as the ocean responds to intensified basin-scale winds in boreal summer. The dimensions of the Pacific Ocean are such that seasonal thermocline tilting does not occur, and nutrient conditions are such that tilting might not induce bloom, in any case. Divergence at the equator is a separate process that strengthens the Atlantic bloom, is more prominent in the eastern Pacific, and in the Indian Ocean induces a bloom only in the western part of the ocean. Where western jet currents are retroflected from the coast off Somalia and Brazil, eddy upwelling induces prominent blooms. In the eastward flow of the northern equatorial countercurrents, positive wind curl stress induces Ekman pumping and the induction of algal blooms aligned with the currents. Some apparent algal bloom, such as that seen frequently in CZCS images westwards from Senegal, must be due to interference from airborne dust.

TAO/TRITON, RAMA, and PIRATA Buoys, Quarterly, 1977-present, Wind

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — This dataset has quarterly Wind data from the TAO/TRITON (Pacific Ocean, https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/gtmba/ ), RAMA (Indian Ocean,...

Comparison Between Wind Power Prediction Models Based on Wavelet Decomposition with Least-Squares Support Vector Machine (LS-SVM and Artificial Neural Network (ANN

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maria Grazia De Giorgi

2014-08-01

Full Text Available A high penetration of wind energy into the electricity market requires a parallel development of efficient wind power forecasting models. Different hybrid forecasting methods were applied to wind power prediction, using historical data and numerical weather predictions (NWP. A comparative study was carried out for the prediction of the power production of a wind farm located in complex terrain. The performances of Least-Squares Support Vector Machine (LS-SVM with Wavelet Decomposition (WD were evaluated at different time horizons and compared to hybrid Artificial Neural Network (ANN-based methods. It is acknowledged that hybrid methods based on LS-SVM with WD mostly outperform other methods. A decomposition of the commonly known root mean square error was beneficial for a better understanding of the origin of the differences between prediction and measurement and to compare the accuracy of the different models. A sensitivity analysis was also carried out in order to underline the impact that each input had in the network training process for ANN. In the case of ANN with the WD technique, the sensitivity analysis was repeated on each component obtained by the decomposition.

National Offshore Wind Strategy: Facilitating the Development of the Offshore Wind Industry in the United States

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gilman, Patrick [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Maurer, Ben [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Feinberg, Luke [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Duerr, Alana [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Peterson, Lauren [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Musial, Walt [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Beiter, Phillipp [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Golladay, Jennifer [Dept. of the Interior (DOI), Washington DC (United States); Stromberg, Jessica [Dept. of the Interior (DOI), Washington DC (United States); Johnson, Isis [Dept. of the Interior (DOI), Washington DC (United States); Boren, Doug [Dept. of the Interior (DOI), Washington DC (United States); Moore, Annette [Dept. of the Interior (DOI), Washington DC (United States)

2016-09-01

The U.S. Department of Energy, through its Wind Energy Technologies Office, and U.S. Department of the Interior, through its Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, have jointly produced this updated national strategy to facilitate the responsible development of offshore wind energy in the United States.

Simulating and understanding the gap outflow and oceanic response over the Gulf of Tehuantepec during GOTEX

Science.gov (United States)

Hong, Xiaodong; Peng, Melinda; Wang, Shouping; Wang, Qing

2018-06-01

Tehuantepecer is a strong mountain gap wind traveling through Chivela Pass into eastern Pacific coast in southern Mexico, most commonly between October and February and brings huge impacts on local and surrounding meteorology and oceanography. Gulf of Tehuantepec EXperiment (GOTEX) was conducted in February 2004 to enhance the understanding of the strong offshore gap wind, ocean cooling, vertical circulations and interactions among them. The gap wind event during GOTEX was simulated using the U.S. Navy Coupled Ocean/Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS®). The simulations are compared and validated with the observations retrieved from several satellites (GOES 10-12, MODIS/Aqua/Terra, TMI, and QuikSCAT) and Airborne EXpendable BathyThermograph (AXBT). The study shows that the gap wind outflow has a fanlike pattern expending from the coast and with a strong diurnal variability. The surface wind stress and cooling along the axis of the gap wind outflow caused intense upwelling and vertical mixing in the upper ocean; both contributed to the cooling of the ocean mixed layer under the gap wind. The cooling pattern of sea surface temperature (SST) also reflects temperature advection by the nearby ocean eddies to have a crescent shape. Two sensitivity experiments were conducted to understand the relative roles of the wind stress and heat flux on the ocean cooling. The control has more cooling right under the gap flow region than either the wind-stress-only or the heat-flux-only experiment. Overall, the wind stress has a slightly larger effect in bringing down the ocean temperature near the surface and plays a more important role in local ocean circulations beneath the mixed layer. The impact of surface heat flux on the ocean is more limited to the top 30 m within the mixed layer and is symmetric to the gap flow region by cooling the ocean under the gap flow region and reducing the warming on both sides. The effect of surface wind stress is to induce more cooling

Extrapolating Satellite Winds to Turbine Operating Heights

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Badger, Merete; Pena Diaz, Alfredo; Hahmann, Andrea N.

2016-01-01

Ocean wind retrievals from satellite sensors are typically performed for the standard level of 10 m. This restricts their full exploitation for wind energy planning, which requires wind information at much higher levels where wind turbines operate. A new method is presented for the vertical...... extrapolation of satellitebased wind maps. Winds near the sea surface are obtained from satellite data and used together with an adaptation of the Monin–Obukhov similarity theory to estimate the wind speed at higher levels. The thermal stratification of the atmosphere is taken into account through a long...

The role of meridional density differences for a wind-driven overturning circulation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Schewe, J.; Levermann, A. [Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Earth System Analysis, Potsdam (Germany); Potsdam University, Physics Institute, Potsdam (Germany)

2010-03-15

Experiments with the coupled climate model CLIMBER-3{alpha}, which contains an oceanic general circulation model, show deep upwelling in the Southern Ocean to be proportional to the surface wind stress in the latitudinal band of Drake Passage. At the same time, the distribution of the Southern Ocean upwelling onto the oceanic basins is controlled by buoyancy distribution; the inflow into each basin being proportional to the respective meridional density difference. We observe approximately the same constant of proportionality for all basins, and demonstrate that it can be directly related to the flow geometry. For increased wind stress in the Southern Ocean, the overturning increases both in the Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific basin. For strongly reduced wind stress, the circulation enters a regime where Atlantic overturning is maintained through Pacific upwelling, in order to satisfy the transports set by the density differences. Previous results on surface buoyancy and wind stress forcing, obtained with different models, are reproduced within one model in order to distill a consistent picture. We propose that both Southern Ocean upwelling and meridional density differences set up a system of conditions that determine the global meridional overturning circulation. (orig.)

Wind Profiling Radar

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Clutter present in radar return signals as used for wind profiling is substantially removed by carrying out a Daubechies wavelet transformation on a time series of...

Wind_Speeds_Master

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — This data set included wind speeds for each subregion in the study (Georges Bank, Gulf of Maine, Southern New England, Middle Atlantic Bight) . The data came from...

Seasonal cycle of cross-equatorial flow in the central Indian Ocean

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Yi; McPhaden, Michael J.

2017-05-01

This study investigates the seasonal cycle of meridional currents in the upper layers of central equatorial Indian Ocean using acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) and other data over the period 2004-2013. The ADCP data set collected along 80.5°E is the most comprehensive collection of direct velocity measurements in the central Indian Ocean to date, providing new insights into the meridional circulation in this region. We find that mean volume transport is southward across the equator in the central Indian Ocean in approximate Sverdrup balance with the wind stress curl. In addition, mean westerly wind stress near the equator drives convergent Ekman flow in the surface layer and subsurface divergent geostrophic flow in the thermocline at 50-150 m depths. In response to a mean northward component of the surface wind stress, the maximum surface layer convergence is shifted off the equator to between 0.5° and 1°N. Evidence is also presented for the existence of a shallow equatorial roll consisting of a northward wind-driven surface drift overlaying the southward directed subsurface Sverdrup transport. Seasonal variations are characterized by cross-equatorial transports flowing from the summer to the winter hemisphere in quasi-steady Sverdrup balance with the wind stress curl. In addition, semiannually varying westerly monsoon transition winds lead to semiannual enhancements of surface layer Ekman convergence and geostrophic divergence in the thermocline. These results quantify expectations from ocean circulation theories for equatorial Indian Ocean meridional circulation patterns with a high degree of confidence given the length of the data records.

Retrieval of vertical wind profiles during monsoon from satellite ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Complex EOF analysis; cloud motion vector winds; wind profiles; retrieval; monsoon. Proc. Indian Acad. Sci. .... The data gaps are removed using simple linear interpolation .... retrieved via standard linear regression using the two independent ...

Wind load effects on high rise buildings in Peninsular Malaysia

Science.gov (United States)

Nizamani, Z.; Thang, K. C.; Haider, B.; Shariff, M.

2018-04-01

Wind is a randomly varying dynamic phenomenon composed of a multitude of eddies of varying sizes and rotational characteristics along a general stream of air moving relative to the ground. These eddies give wind its gustiness, creating fluctuation and results in a complex flow characteristics. The wind vector at any point can be regarded as the sum of mean wind vector and the fluctuation components. These components not only vary with height but also dependant on the approach terrain and topography. Prevailing wind exerts pressure onto the structural surfaces. The effects of wind pressure in the form of shear and bending moments are found to be a major problem in structural failure. This study aims to study the effects of wind load on a fifteen-storey high rise building using EN 1991-1-4 code and MS1553:2002. The simulation results showed that by increasing the wind speed, the storey resultant forces, namely storey shear and storey moment increases significantly. Furthermore, simulation results according to EN 1991-1-4 yield higher values compared to the simulation results according to MS1553:2002.

Understanding the El Niño-like Oceanic Response in the Tropical Pacific to Global Warming

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Luo, Yiyong; Lu, Jian; Liu, Fukai; Liu, Wei

2015-10-10

The enhanced central and eastern Pacific SST warming and the associated ocean processes under global warming are investigated using the ocean component of the Community Earth System Model (CESM), Parallel Ocean Program version 2 (POP2). The tropical SST warming pattern in the coupled CESM can be faithfully reproduced by the POP2 forced with surface fluxes computed using the aerodynamic bulk formula. By prescribing the wind stress and/or wind speed through the bulk formula, the effects of wind stress change and/or the wind-evaporation-SST (WES) feedback are isolated and their linearity is evaluated in this ocean-alone setting. Result shows that, although the weakening of the equatorial easterlies contributes positively to the El Niño-like SST warming, 80% of which can be simulated by the POP2 without considering the effects of wind change in both mechanical and thermodynamic fluxes. This result points to the importance of the air-sea thermal interaction and the relative feebleness of the ocean dynamical process in the El Niño-like equatorial Pacific SST response to global warming. On the other hand, the wind stress change is found to play a dominant role in the oceanic response in the tropical Pacific, accounting for most of the changes in the equatorial ocean current system and thermal structures, including the weakening of the surface westward currents, the enhancement of the near-surface stratification and the shoaling of the equatorial thermocline. Interestingly, greenhouse gas warming in the absence of wind stress change and WES feedback also contributes substantially to the changes at the subsurface equatorial Pacific. Further, this warming impact can be largely replicated by an idealized ocean experiment forced by a uniform surface heat flux, whereby, arguably, a purest form of oceanic dynamical thermostat is revealed.

Spanish leadership in marine renewable energies. The project Ocean Lider; Liderazgo espanol en energias renovables oceanicas. El proyecto Ocean Lider

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Amante, J.

2012-07-01

The Cenit-e Ocean Lider project is an ambitious R+D technological initiative promoted by a consortium of companies with a strong research capability which addresses the challenge of developing the necessary technologies to set up integrated large scale installations that can harness energies of marine renewable sources, such as waves, tidal currents and wind. Ocean Lider developed knowledge and technologies would provide some new power plant concepts, devices, structures, data acquisition and site characterization systems, vessels, etc. In this way, some new technologies for harnessing ocean energy generation, distribution and transmission would be developed and sized according to a large scale scheme, to make this hybrid harvest (wave, current and wind) as profitable as possible. (Author)

A HPC “Cyber Wind Facility” Incorporating Fully-Coupled CFD/CSD for Turbine-Platform-Wake Interactions with the Atmosphere and Ocean

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Brasseur, James G. [Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)

2017-05-09

The central aims of the DOE-supported “Cyber Wind Facility” project center on the recognition that wind turbines over land and ocean generate power from atmospheric winds that are inherently turbulent and strongly varying, both spatially over the rotor disk and in temporally as the rotating blades pass through atmospheric eddies embedded within the mean wind. The daytime unstable atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) is particularly variable in space time as solar heating generates buoyancy-driven motions that interact with strong mean shear in the ABL “surface layer,” the lowest 200 - 300 m where wind turbines reside in farms. With the “Cyber Wind Facility” (CWF) program we initiate a research and technology direction in which “cyber data” are generated from “computational experiments” within a “facility” akin to a wind tunnel, but with true space-time atmospheric turbulence that drive utility-scale wind turbines at full-scale Reynolds numbers. With DOE support we generated the key “modules” within a computational framework to create a first generation Cyber Wind Facility (CWF) for single wind turbines in the daytime ABL---both over land where the ABL globally unstable and over water with closer-to-neutral atmospheric conditions but with time response strongly affected by wave-induced forcing of the wind turbine platform (here a buoy configuration). The CWF program has significantly improved the accuracy of actuator line models, evaluated with the Cyber Wind Facility in full blade-boundary-layer-resolved mode. The application of the CWF made in this program showed the existence of important ramp-like response events that likely contribute to bearing fatigue failure on the main shaft and that the advanced ALM method developed here captures the primary nonsteady response characteristics. Long-time analysis uncovered distinctive key dynamics that explain primary mechanisms that underlie potentially deleterious load transients. We also showed

Oceansat-2 and RAMA buoy winds: A comparison

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

rate Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) model analysis over the data sparse oceanic region. Sea ... Among the three tropical oceans, Pacific, Atlantic ..... which obviously causes bias. ... side, and will increase mean buoy winds relative.

Ocean-atmosphere dynamics during Hurricane Ida and Nor'Ida: An application of the coupled ocean-;atmosphere–wave–sediment transport (COAWST) modeling system

Science.gov (United States)

Olabarrieta, Maitane; Warner, John C.; Armstrong, Brandy N.; Zambon, Joseph B.; He, Ruoying

2012-01-01

The coupled ocean–atmosphere–wave–sediment transport (COAWST) modeling system was used to investigate atmosphere–ocean–wave interactions in November 2009 during Hurricane Ida and its subsequent evolution to Nor'Ida, which was one of the most costly storm systems of the past two decades. One interesting aspect of this event is that it included two unique atmospheric extreme conditions, a hurricane and a nor'easter storm, which developed in regions with different oceanographic characteristics. Our modeled results were compared with several data sources, including GOES satellite infrared data, JASON-1 and JASON-2 altimeter data, CODAR measurements, and wave and tidal information from the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) and the National Tidal Database. By performing a series of numerical runs, we were able to isolate the effect of the interaction terms between the atmosphere (modeled with Weather Research and Forecasting, the WRF model), the ocean (modeled with Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS)), and the wave propagation and generation model (modeled with Simulating Waves Nearshore (SWAN)). Special attention was given to the role of the ocean surface roughness. Three different ocean roughness closure models were analyzed: DGHQ (which is based on wave age), TY2001 (which is based on wave steepness), and OOST (which considers both the effects of wave age and steepness). Including the ocean roughness in the atmospheric module improved the wind intensity estimation and therefore also the wind waves, surface currents, and storm surge amplitude. For example, during the passage of Hurricane Ida through the Gulf of Mexico, the wind speeds were reduced due to wave-induced ocean roughness, resulting in better agreement with the measured winds. During Nor'Ida, including the wave-induced surface roughness changed the form and dimension of the main low pressure cell, affecting the intensity and direction of the winds. The combined wave age- and wave steepness

Ocean-atmosphere dynamics during Hurricane Ida and Nor'Ida: An application of the coupled ocean-atmosphere-wave-sediment transport (COAWST) modeling system

Science.gov (United States)

Olabarrieta, Maitane; Warner, John C.; Armstrong, Brandy N.; Zambon, Joseph B.; He, Ruoying

2012-01-01

The coupled ocean–atmosphere–wave–sediment transport (COAWST) modeling system was used to investigate atmosphere–ocean–wave interactions in November 2009 during Hurricane Ida and its subsequent evolution to Nor’Ida, which was one of the most costly storm systems of the past two decades. One interesting aspect of this event is that it included two unique atmospheric extreme conditions, a hurricane and a nor’easter storm, which developed in regions with different oceanographic characteristics. Our modeled results were compared with several data sources, including GOES satellite infrared data, JASON-1 and JASON-2 altimeter data, CODAR measurements, and wave and tidal information from the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) and the National Tidal Database. By performing a series of numerical runs, we were able to isolate the effect of the interaction terms between the atmosphere (modeled with Weather Research and Forecasting, the WRF model), the ocean (modeled with Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS)), and the wave propagation and generation model (modeled with Simulating Waves Nearshore (SWAN)). Special attention was given to the role of the ocean surface roughness. Three different ocean roughness closure models were analyzed: DGHQ (which is based on wave age), TY2001 (which is based on wave steepness), and OOST (which considers both the effects of wave age and steepness). Including the ocean roughness in the atmospheric module improved the wind intensity estimation and therefore also the wind waves, surface currents, and storm surge amplitude. For example, during the passage of Hurricane Ida through the Gulf of Mexico, the wind speeds were reduced due to wave-induced ocean roughness, resulting in better agreement with the measured winds. During Nor’Ida, including the wave-induced surface roughness changed the form and dimension of the main low pressure cell, affecting the intensity and direction of the winds. The combined wave age- and wave steepness

Random function representation of stationary stochastic vector processes for probability density evolution analysis of wind-induced structures

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Zhangjun; Liu, Zenghui

2018-06-01

This paper develops a hybrid approach of spectral representation and random function for simulating stationary stochastic vector processes. In the proposed approach, the high-dimensional random variables, included in the original spectral representation (OSR) formula, could be effectively reduced to only two elementary random variables by introducing the random functions that serve as random constraints. Based on this, a satisfactory simulation accuracy can be guaranteed by selecting a small representative point set of the elementary random variables. The probability information of the stochastic excitations can be fully emerged through just several hundred of sample functions generated by the proposed approach. Therefore, combined with the probability density evolution method (PDEM), it could be able to implement dynamic response analysis and reliability assessment of engineering structures. For illustrative purposes, a stochastic turbulence wind velocity field acting on a frame-shear-wall structure is simulated by constructing three types of random functions to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed approach. Careful and in-depth studies concerning the probability density evolution analysis of the wind-induced structure have been conducted so as to better illustrate the application prospects of the proposed approach. Numerical examples also show that the proposed approach possesses a good robustness.

Potential climatic impacts and reliability of very large-scale wind farms

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

C. Wang

2010-02-01

Full Text Available Meeting future world energy needs while addressing climate change requires large-scale deployment of low or zero greenhouse gas (GHG emission technologies such as wind energy. The widespread availability of wind power has fueled substantial interest in this renewable energy source as one of the needed technologies. For very large-scale utilization of this resource, there are however potential environmental impacts, and also problems arising from its inherent intermittency, in addition to the present need to lower unit costs. To explore some of these issues, we use a three-dimensional climate model to simulate the potential climate effects associated with installation of wind-powered generators over vast areas of land or coastal ocean. Using wind turbines to meet 10% or more of global energy demand in 2100, could cause surface warming exceeding 1 °C over land installations. In contrast, surface cooling exceeding 1 °C is computed over ocean installations, but the validity of simulating the impacts of wind turbines by simply increasing the ocean surface drag needs further study. Significant warming or cooling remote from both the land and ocean installations, and alterations of the global distributions of rainfall and clouds also occur. These results are influenced by the competing effects of increases in roughness and decreases in wind speed on near-surface turbulent heat fluxes, the differing nature of land and ocean surface friction, and the dimensions of the installations parallel and perpendicular to the prevailing winds. These results are also dependent on the accuracy of the model used, and the realism of the methods applied to simulate wind turbines. Additional theory and new field observations will be required for their ultimate validation. Intermittency of wind power on daily, monthly and longer time scales as computed in these simulations and inferred from meteorological observations, poses a demand for one or more options to ensure

TAO/TRITON, RAMA, and PIRATA Buoys, Daily, 1989-present, Wind Stress

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — This dataset has daily Wind Stress data from the TAO/TRITON (Pacific Ocean, https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/gtmba/ ), RAMA (Indian Ocean,...

TAO/TRITON, RAMA, and PIRATA Buoys, Monthly, 1989-present, Wind Stress

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — This dataset has monthly Wind Stress data from the TAO/TRITON (Pacific Ocean, https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/gtmba/ ), RAMA (Indian Ocean,...

Wind and wave dataset for Matara, Sri Lanka

Science.gov (United States)

Luo, Yao; Wang, Dongxiao; Priyadarshana Gamage, Tilak; Zhou, Fenghua; Madusanka Widanage, Charith; Liu, Taiwei

2018-01-01

We present a continuous in situ hydro-meteorology observational dataset from a set of instruments first deployed in December 2012 in the south of Sri Lanka, facing toward the north Indian Ocean. In these waters, simultaneous records of wind and wave data are sparse due to difficulties in deploying measurement instruments, although the area hosts one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. This study describes the survey, deployment, and measurements of wind and waves, with the aim of offering future users of the dataset the most comprehensive and as much information as possible. This dataset advances our understanding of the nearshore hydrodynamic processes and wave climate, including sea waves and swells, in the north Indian Ocean. Moreover, it is a valuable resource for ocean model parameterization and validation. The archived dataset (Table 1) is examined in detail, including wave data at two locations with water depths of 20 and 10 m comprising synchronous time series of wind, ocean astronomical tide, air pressure, etc. In addition, we use these wave observations to evaluate the ERA-Interim reanalysis product. Based on Buoy 2 data, the swells are the main component of waves year-round, although monsoons can markedly alter the proportion between swell and wind sea. The dataset (Luo et al., 2017) is publicly available from Science Data Bank (https://doi.org/10.11922/sciencedb.447).

Wind and wave dataset for Matara, Sri Lanka

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Y. Luo

2018-01-01

Full Text Available We present a continuous in situ hydro-meteorology observational dataset from a set of instruments first deployed in December 2012 in the south of Sri Lanka, facing toward the north Indian Ocean. In these waters, simultaneous records of wind and wave data are sparse due to difficulties in deploying measurement instruments, although the area hosts one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. This study describes the survey, deployment, and measurements of wind and waves, with the aim of offering future users of the dataset the most comprehensive and as much information as possible. This dataset advances our understanding of the nearshore hydrodynamic processes and wave climate, including sea waves and swells, in the north Indian Ocean. Moreover, it is a valuable resource for ocean model parameterization and validation. The archived dataset (Table 1 is examined in detail, including wave data at two locations with water depths of 20 and 10 m comprising synchronous time series of wind, ocean astronomical tide, air pressure, etc. In addition, we use these wave observations to evaluate the ERA-Interim reanalysis product. Based on Buoy 2 data, the swells are the main component of waves year-round, although monsoons can markedly alter the proportion between swell and wind sea. The dataset (Luo et al., 2017 is publicly available from Science Data Bank (https://doi.org/10.11922/sciencedb.447.

Using Satellite SAR to Characterize the Wind Flow around Offshore Wind Farms

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Charlotte Bay Hasager

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Offshore wind farm cluster effects between neighboring wind farms increase rapidly with the large-scale deployment of offshore wind turbines. The wind farm wakes observed from Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR are sometimes visible and atmospheric and wake models are here shown to convincingly reproduce the observed very long wind farm wakes. The present study mainly focuses on wind farm wake climatology based on Envisat ASAR. The available SAR data archive covering the large offshore wind farms at Horns Rev has been used for geo-located wind farm wake studies. However, the results are difficult to interpret due to mainly three issues: the limited number of samples per wind directional sector, the coastal wind speed gradient, and oceanic bathymetry effects in the SAR retrievals. A new methodology is developed and presented. This method overcomes effectively the first issue and in most cases, but not always, the second. In the new method all wind field maps are rotated such that the wind is always coming from the same relative direction. By applying the new method to the SAR wind maps, mesoscale and microscale model wake aggregated wind-fields results are compared. The SAR-based findings strongly support the model results at Horns Rev 1.

Four Methods for LIDAR Retrieval of Microscale Wind Fields

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Thomas Naini

2012-08-01

Full Text Available This paper evaluates four wind retrieval methods for micro-scale meteorology applications with volume and time resolution in the order of 30m³ and 5 s. Wind field vectors are estimated using sequential time-lapse volume images of aerosol density fluctuations. Suitably designed mono-static scanning backscatter LIDAR systems, which are sensitive to atmospheric density aerosol fluctuations, are expected to be ideal for this purpose. An important application is wind farm siting and evaluation. In this case, it is necessary to look at the complicated region between the earth’s surface and the boundary layer, where wind can be turbulent and fractal scaling from millimeter to kilometer. The methods are demonstrated using first a simple randomized moving hard target, and then with a physics based stochastic space-time dynamic turbulence model. In the latter case the actual vector wind field is known, allowing complete space-time error analysis. Two of the methods, the semblance method and the spatio-temporal method, are found to be most suitable for wind field estimation.

Saturation wind power potential and its implications for wind energy.

Science.gov (United States)

Jacobson, Mark Z; Archer, Cristina L

2012-09-25

Wind turbines convert kinetic to electrical energy, which returns to the atmosphere as heat to regenerate some potential and kinetic energy. As the number of wind turbines increases over large geographic regions, power extraction first increases linearly, but then converges to a saturation potential not identified previously from physical principles or turbine properties. These saturation potentials are >250 terawatts (TW) at 100 m globally, approximately 80 TW at 100 m over land plus coastal ocean outside Antarctica, and approximately 380 TW at 10 km in the jet streams. Thus, there is no fundamental barrier to obtaining half (approximately 5.75 TW) or several times the world's all-purpose power from wind in a 2030 clean-energy economy.

Statistical downscaling of historical monthly mean winds over a coastal region of complex terrain. II. Predicting wind components

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kamp, Derek van der [University of Victoria, Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium, Victoria, BC (Canada); University of Victoria, School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Victoria, BC (Canada); Curry, Charles L. [Environment Canada University of Victoria, Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, Victoria, BC (Canada); University of Victoria, School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Victoria, BC (Canada); Monahan, Adam H. [University of Victoria, School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Victoria, BC (Canada)

2012-04-15

A regression-based downscaling technique was applied to monthly mean surface wind observations from stations throughout western Canada as well as from buoys in the Northeast Pacific Ocean over the period 1979-2006. A predictor set was developed from principal component analysis of the three wind components at 500 hPa and mean sea-level pressure taken from the NCEP Reanalysis II. Building on the results of a companion paper, Curry et al. (Clim Dyn 2011), the downscaling was applied to both wind speed and wind components, in an effort to evaluate the utility of each type of predictand. Cross-validated prediction skill varied strongly with season, with autumn and summer displaying the highest and lowest skill, respectively. In most cases wind components were predicted with better skill than wind speeds. The predictive ability of wind components was found to be strongly related to their orientation. Wind components with the best predictions were often oriented along topographically significant features such as constricted valleys, mountain ranges or ocean channels. This influence of directionality on predictive ability is most prominent during autumn and winter at inland sites with complex topography. Stations in regions with relatively flat terrain (where topographic steering is minimal) exhibit inter-station consistencies including region-wide seasonal shifts in the direction of the best predicted wind component. The conclusion that wind components can be skillfully predicted only over a limited range of directions at most stations limits the scope of statistically downscaled wind speed predictions. It seems likely that such limitations apply to other regions of complex terrain as well. (orig.)

Combining dispersion modelling with synoptic patterns to understand the wind-borne transport into the UK of the bluetongue disease vector.

Science.gov (United States)

Burgin, Laura; Ekström, Marie; Dessai, Suraje

2017-07-01

Bluetongue, an economically important animal disease, can be spread over long distances by carriage of insect vectors (Culicoides biting midges) on the wind. The weather conditions which influence the midge's flight are controlled by synoptic scale atmospheric circulations. A method is proposed that links wind-borne dispersion of the insects to synoptic circulation through the use of a dispersion model in combination with principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis. We illustrate how to identify the main synoptic situations present during times of midge incursions into the UK from the European continent. A PCA was conducted on high-pass-filtered mean sea-level pressure data for a domain centred over north-west Europe from 2005 to 2007. A clustering algorithm applied to the PCA scores indicated the data should be divided into five classes for which averages were calculated, providing a classification of the main synoptic types present. Midge incursion events were found to mainly occur in two synoptic categories; 64.8% were associated with a pattern displaying a pressure gradient over the North Atlantic leading to moderate south-westerly flow over the UK and 17.9% of the events occurred when high pressure dominated the region leading to south-easterly or easterly winds. The winds indicated by the pressure maps generally compared well against observations from a surface station and analysis charts. This technique could be used to assess frequency and timings of incursions of virus into new areas on seasonal and decadal timescales, currently not possible with other dispersion or biological modelling methods.

Offshore wind mapping Mediterranean area using SAR

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Calaudi, Rosamaria; Arena, Felice; Badger, Merete

2013-01-01

Satellite observations of the ocean surface, for example from Synthetic Aperture Radars (SAR), provide information about the spatial wind variability over large areas. This is of special interest in the Mediterranean Sea, where spatial wind information is only provided by sparse buoys, often with...

Offshore Wind Potential in South India from Synthetic Aperture Radar

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hasager, Charlotte Bay; Bingöl, Ferhat; Badger, Merete

are from Wide Swath Mode and each cover approximately 400 km by 400 km. The ocean wind speed maps are retrieved and processed at Risø DTU. The results show wind energy density from 200 W/m2 to 500 W/m2 at 10 m height above sea level. QuikSCAT ocean winds are included as background information on the 10......The offshore wind energy potential for pre-feasibility in South India in the area from 77° to 80° Eastern longitude and 7° to 10° Northern latitude is observed from a total of 164 ENVISAT Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) satellite images during the years 2002 to 2011. All satellite scenes......-year mean and a general description of the winds and climate with monsoons in India is presented....

Offshore wind potential in South India from synthetic aperture radar

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hasager, C.B.; Bingoel, F.; Badger, M.; Karagali, I.; Sreevalsan, E.

2011-10-15

The offshore wind energy potential for pre-feasibility in South India in the area from 77 deg. to 80 deg. Eastern longitude and 7 deg. to 10 deg. Northern latitude is observed from a total of 164 ENVISAT Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) satellite images during the years 2002 to 2011. All satellite scenes are from Wide Swath Mode and each cover approximately 400 km by 400 km. The ocean wind speed maps are retrieved and processed at Risoe DTU. The results show wind energy density from 200 W/m2 to 500 W/m2 at 10 m height above sea level. QuikSCAT ocean winds are included as background information on the 10-year mean and a general description of the winds and climate with monsoons in India is presented. (Author)

Applicability of Synthetic Aperture Radar Wind Retrievals on Offshore Wind Resources Assessment in Hangzhou Bay, China

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Chang, Rui; Zhu, Rong; Badger, Merete

2014-01-01

In view of the high cost and sparse spatial resolution of offshore meteorological observations, ocean winds retrieved from satellites are valuable in offshore wind resource assessment as a supplement to in situ measurements. This study examines satellite synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images from...... ENVISAT advanced SAR (ASAR) for mapping wind resources with high spatial resolution. Around 181 collected pairs of wind data from SAR wind maps and from 13 meteorological stations in Hangzhou Bay are compared. The statistical results comparing in situ wind speed and SAR-based wind speed show a standard...... density functions are compared at one meteorological station. The SAR-based results appear not to estimate the mean wind speed, Weibull scale and shape parameters and wind power density from the full in situ data set so well due to the lower number of satellite samples. Distributions calculated from...

Annual cycle of the upper-ocean circulation and properties in the ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

ocean dynamics and its influence on ocean properties in the tropical western Indian Ocean. Surface winds and heat fluxes from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) reanalysis forced the model (Model_NCEP) with initial and ...

High-frequency and meso-scale winter sea-ice variability in the Southern Ocean in a high-resolution global ocean model

Science.gov (United States)

Stössel, Achim; von Storch, Jin-Song; Notz, Dirk; Haak, Helmuth; Gerdes, Rüdiger

2018-03-01

This study is on high-frequency temporal variability (HFV) and meso-scale spatial variability (MSV) of winter sea-ice drift in the Southern Ocean simulated with a global high-resolution (0.1°) sea ice-ocean model. Hourly model output is used to distinguish MSV characteristics via patterns of mean kinetic energy (MKE) and turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) of ice drift, surface currents, and wind stress, and HFV characteristics via time series of raw variables and correlations. We find that (1) along the ice edge, the MSV of ice drift coincides with that of surface currents, in particular such due to ocean eddies; (2) along the coast, the MKE of ice drift is substantially larger than its TKE and coincides with the MKE of wind stress; (3) in the interior of the ice pack, the TKE of ice drift is larger than its MKE, mostly following the TKE pattern of wind stress; (4) the HFV of ice drift is dominated by weather events, and, in the absence of tidal currents, locally and to a much smaller degree by inertial oscillations; (5) along the ice edge, the curl of the ice drift is highly correlated with that of surface currents, mostly reflecting the impact of ocean eddies. Where ocean eddies occur and the ice is relatively thin, ice velocity is characterized by enhanced relative vorticity, largely matching that of surface currents. Along the ice edge, ocean eddies produce distinct ice filaments, the realism of which is largely confirmed by high-resolution satellite passive-microwave data.

Hemispherically asymmetric trade wind changes as signatures of past ITCZ shifts

Science.gov (United States)

McGee, David; Moreno-Chamarro, Eduardo; Green, Brian; Marshall, John; Galbraith, Eric; Bradtmiller, Louisa

2018-01-01

The atmospheric Hadley cells, which meet at the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), play critical roles in transporting heat, driving ocean circulation and supplying precipitation to the most heavily populated regions of the globe. Paleo-reconstructions can provide concrete evidence of how these major features of the atmospheric circulation can change in response to climate perturbations. While most such reconstructions have focused on ITCZ-related rainfall, here we show that trade wind proxies can document dynamical aspects of meridional ITCZ shifts. Theoretical expectations based on angular momentum constraints and results from freshwater hosing simulations with two different climate models predict that ITCZ shifts due to anomalous cooling of one hemisphere would be accompanied by a strengthening of the Hadley cell and trade winds in the colder hemisphere, with an opposite response in the warmer hemisphere. This expectation of hemispherically asymmetric trade wind changes is confirmed by proxy data of coastal upwelling and windblown dust from the Atlantic basin during Heinrich stadials, showing trade wind strengthening in the Northern Hemisphere and weakening in the Southern Hemisphere subtropics in concert with southward ITCZ shifts. Data from other basins show broadly similar patterns, though improved constraints on past trade wind changes are needed outside the Atlantic Basin. The asymmetric trade wind changes identified here suggest that ITCZ shifts are also marked by intensification of the ocean's wind-driven subtropical cells in the cooler hemisphere and a weakening in the warmer hemisphere, which induces cross-equatorial oceanic heat transport into the colder hemisphere. This response would be expected to prevent extreme meridional ITCZ shifts in response to asymmetric heating or cooling. Understanding trade wind changes and their coupling to cross-equatorial ocean cells is key to better constraining ITCZ shifts and ocean and atmosphere dynamical

Secondary current properties generated by wind-induced water waves in experimental conditions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Michio Sanjou

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Secondary currents such as the Langmuir circulation are of high interest in natural rivers and the ocean because they have striking impacts on scour, sedimentation, and mass transport. Basic characteristics have been well-studied in straight open-channel flows. However, little is known regarding secondary circulation induced by wind waves. The presented study describes the generation properties of wind waves observed in the laboratory tank. Wind-induced water waves are known to produce large scale circulations. The phenomenon is observed together with high-speed and low-speed streaks, convergence and divergence zones, respectively. Therefore, it is important to determine the hydrodynamic properties of secondary currents for wind-induced water waves within rivers and lakes. In this study, using two high-speed CMOS cameras, stereoscopic particle image velocimetry (PIV measurements were conducted in order to reveal the distribution of all three components of velocity vectors. The experiments allowed us to investigate the three-dimensional turbulent structure under water waves and the generation mechanism of large-scale circulations. Additionally, a third CMOS camera was used to measure the spanwise profile of thefree-surface elevation. The time-series of velocity components and the free-surface were obtained simultaneously. From our experiments, free-surface variations were found to influence the instantaneous velocity distributions of the cross-sectional plane. We also considered thegeneration process by the phase analysis related to gravity waves and compared the contribution of the apparent stress.

Evaluation and Windspeed Dependence of MODIS Aerosol Retrievals Over Open Ocean

Science.gov (United States)

Kleidman, Richard G.; Smirnov, Alexander; Levy, Robert C.; Mattoo, Shana; Tanre, Didier

2011-01-01

The Maritime Aerosol Network (MAN) data set provides high quality ground-truth to validate the MODIS aerosol product over open ocean. Prior validation of the ocean aerosol product has been limited to coastal and island sites. Comparing MODIS Collection 5 ocean aerosol retrieval products with collocated MAN measurements from ships shows that MODIS is meeting the pre-launch uncertainty estimates for aerosol optical depth (AOD) with 64% and 67% of retrievals at 550 nm, and 74% and 78% of retrievals at 870 nm, falling within expected uncertainty for Terra and Aqua, respectively. Angstrom Exponent comparisons show a high correlation between MODIS retrievals and shipboard measurements (R= 0.85 Terra, 0.83 Aqua), although the MODIS aerosol algorithm tends to underestimate particle size for large particles and overestimate size for small particles, as seen in earlier Collections. Prior analysis noted an offset between Terra and Aqua ocean AOD, without concluding which sensor was more accurate. The simple linear regression reported here, is consistent with other anecdotal evidence that Aqua agreement with AERONET is marginally better. However we cannot claim based on the current study that the better Aqua comparison is statistically significant. Systematic increase of error as a function of wind speed is noted in both Terra and Aqua retrievals. This wind speed dependency enters the retrieval when winds deviate from the 6 m/s value assumed in the rough ocean surface and white cap parameterizations. Wind speed dependency in the results can be mitigated by using auxiliary NCEP wind speed information in the retrieval process.

Mechanics of interrill erosion with wind-driven rain

Science.gov (United States)

The vector physics of wind-driven rain (WDR) differs from that of wind-free rain, and the interrill soil detachment equations in the Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) model were not originally developed to deal with this phenomenon. This article provides an evaluation of the performance of the...

Reminiscences on the study of wind waves

Science.gov (United States)

MITSUYASU, Hisashi

2015-01-01

The wind blowing over sea surface generates tiny wind waves. They develop with time and space absorbing wind energy, and become huge wind waves usually referred to ocean surface waves. The wind waves cause not only serious sea disasters but also take important roles in the local and global climate changes by affecting the fluxes of momentum, heat and gases (e.g. CO2) through the air-sea boundary. The present paper reviews the selected studies on wind waves conducted by our group in the Research Institute for Applied Mechanics (RIAM), Kyushu University. The themes discussed are interactions between water waves and winds, the energy spectrum of wind waves, nonlinear properties of wind waves, and the effects of surfactant on some air-sea interaction phenomena. PMID:25864467

Energy dissipation through wind-generated breaking waves

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

ZHANG Shuwen; CAO Ruixue; XIE Lingling

2012-01-01

Wave breaking is an important process that controls turbulence properties and fluxes of heat and mass in the upper oceanic layer.A model is described for energy dissipation per unit area at the ocean surface attributed to wind-generated breaking waves,in terms of ratio of energy dissipation to energy input,windgenerated wave spectrum,and wave growth rate.Also advanced is a vertical distribution model of turbulent kinetic energy,based on an exponential distribution method.The result shows that energy dissipation rate depends heavily on wind speed and sea state.Our results agree well with predictions of previous works.

Flying with the wind: Scale dependency of speed and direction measurements in modelling wind support in avian flight

Science.gov (United States)

Safi, Kamran; Kranstauber, Bart; Weinzierl, Rolf P.; Griffin, Larry; Reese, Eileen C.; Cabot, David; Cruz, Sebastian; Proaño, Carolina; Takekawa, John Y.; Newman, Scott H.; Waldenström, Jonas; Bengtsson, Daniel; Kays, Roland; Wikelski, Martin; Bohrer, Gil

2013-01-01

Background: Understanding how environmental conditions, especially wind, influence birds' flight speeds is a prerequisite for understanding many important aspects of bird flight, including optimal migration strategies, navigation, and compensation for wind drift. Recent developments in tracking technology and the increased availability of data on large-scale weather patterns have made it possible to use path annotation to link the location of animals to environmental conditions such as wind speed and direction. However, there are various measures available for describing not only wind conditions but also the bird's flight direction and ground speed, and it is unclear which is best for determining the amount of wind support (the length of the wind vector in a bird’s flight direction) and the influence of cross-winds (the length of the wind vector perpendicular to a bird’s direction) throughout a bird's journey.Results: We compared relationships between cross-wind, wind support and bird movements, using path annotation derived from two different global weather reanalysis datasets and three different measures of direction and speed calculation for 288 individuals of nine bird species. Wind was a strong predictor of bird ground speed, explaining 10-66% of the variance, depending on species. Models using data from different weather sources gave qualitatively similar results; however, determining flight direction and speed from successive locations, even at short (15 min intervals), was inferior to using instantaneous GPS-based measures of speed and direction. Use of successive location data significantly underestimated the birds' ground and airspeed, and also resulted in mistaken associations between cross-winds, wind support, and their interactive effects, in relation to the birds' onward flight.Conclusions: Wind has strong effects on bird flight, and combining GPS technology with path annotation of weather variables allows us to quantify these effects for

A simple predictive model for the structure of the oceanic pycnocline

Science.gov (United States)

Gnanadesikan

1999-03-26

A simple theory for the large-scale oceanic circulation is developed, relating pycnocline depth, Northern Hemisphere sinking, and low-latitude upwelling to pycnocline diffusivity and Southern Ocean winds and eddies. The results show that Southern Ocean processes help maintain the global ocean structure and that pycnocline diffusion controls low-latitude upwelling.

TAO/TRITON, RAMA, and PIRATA Buoys, 5-Day, 1989-present, Wind Stress

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — This dataset has 5-day Wind Stress data from the TAO/TRITON (Pacific Ocean, https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/gtmba/ ), RAMA (Indian Ocean,...

A modelling study of the influence of anomalous wind forcing over the Barents Sea on the Atlantic water flow to the Arctic Ocean in the period 1979-2004

Science.gov (United States)

Marciniak, Jakub; Schlichtholz, Pawel; Maslowski, Wieslaw

2016-04-01

Arctic climate system is influenced by oceanic heat transport with the Atlantic water (AW) streaming towards the Arctic Ocean in two branches, through the deep Fram Strait and the shallow Barents Sea. In Fram Strait, the AW submerges below the Polar surface water and then flows cyclonically along the margin of the Arctic Ocean as a subsurface water mass in the Arctic Slope Current. In contrast to the Fram Strait branch, which is the major source of heat for the Arctic Ocean, most of the heat influx to the Barents Sea through the Barents Sea opening (BSO) is passed to the atmosphere. Only cold remnants of AW outflow to the Arctic Ocean through the northeastern gate of the Barents Sea. Some AW entering the Barents Sea recirculates westward, contributing to an outflow from the Barents Sea through the BSO along the shelf slope south of Bear Island, in the Bear Island Slope Current. Even though the two-branched AW flow toward the Arctic Ocean has been known for more than a century, little is known about co-variability of heat fluxes in the two branches, its mechanisms and climatic implications. Recent studies indicate that the Bear Island Slope Current may play a role in this co-variability. Here, co-variability of the flow through the BSO and Fram Strait is investigated using a pan-Arctic coupled ice-ocean hindcast model run for the period 1979-2004 and forced with daily atmospheric data from the ECMWF. Significant wintertime co-variability between the volume transport in the Bear Island and Arctic slope currents and its link to wind forcing over the Barents Sea is confirmed. It is found that the volume transports in these currents are, however, not correlated in the annual mean and that the wintertime co-variability of these currents has no immediate effect on either the net heat flux through the BSO or the net heat flux divergence in the Barents Sea. It is shown that the main climatic effect of wind forcing over the northern Barents Sea shelf is to induce temperature

Wind Diffusivity Current, QuikSCAT SeaWinds, 0.25 degrees, Global, Science Quality, Meridional

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — NOAA CoastWatch distributes science quality Ekman current (in zonal, meridional, and modulus sets) and Ekman upwelling data. This data begins with wind velocity...

Wind Diffusivity Current, QuikSCAT SeaWinds, 0.25 degrees, Global, Science Quality, Zonal

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — NOAA CoastWatch distributes science quality Ekman current (in zonal, meridional, and modulus sets) and Ekman upwelling data. This data begins with wind velocity...

Wind Diffusivity Current, QuikSCAT SeaWinds, 0.25 degrees, Global, Science Quality, Modulus

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — NOAA CoastWatch distributes science quality Ekman current (in zonal, meridional, and modulus sets) and Ekman upwelling data. This data begins with wind velocity...

Wind Stress, METOP ASCAT, 0.25 degrees, Global, Near Real Time, Modulus

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — NOAA CoastWatch distributes near real time wind stress data in zonal, meridional, modulus, and wind stress curl sets. This data begins with wind velocity...

Wind Stress, METOP ASCAT, 0.25 degrees, Global, Near Real Time, Curl

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — NOAA CoastWatch distributes near real time wind stress data in zonal, meridional, modulus, and wind stress curl sets. This data begins with wind velocity...

Wind Stress, METOP ASCAT, 0.25 degrees, Global, Near Real Time, Meridional

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — NOAA CoastWatch distributes near real time wind stress data in zonal, meridional, modulus, and wind stress curl sets. This data begins with wind velocity...

Wind Stress, METOP ASCAT, 0.25 degrees, Global, Near Real Time, Zonal

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — NOAA CoastWatch distributes near real time wind stress data in zonal, meridional, modulus, and wind stress curl sets. This data begins with wind velocity...

Spatio-temporal data analytics for wind energy integration

CERN Document Server

Yang, Lei; Zhang, Junshan

2014-01-01

This SpringerBrief presents spatio-temporal data analytics for wind energy integration using stochastic modeling and optimization methods. It explores techniques for efficiently integrating renewable energy generation into bulk power grids. The operational challenges of wind, and its variability are carefully examined. A spatio-temporal analysis approach enables the authors to develop Markov-chain-based short-term forecasts of wind farm power generation. To deal with the wind ramp dynamics, a support vector machine enhanced Markov model is introduced. The stochastic optimization of economic di

Wind speed errors for LIDARs and SODARs in complex terrain

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bradley, S

2008-01-01

All commercial LIDARs and SODARs are monostatic and hence sample distributed volumes to construct wind vector components. We use an analytic potential flow model to estimate errors arising for a range of LIDAR and SODAR configurations on hills and escarpments. Wind speed errors peak at a height relevant to wind turbines and can be typically 20%

Wind speed errors for LIDARs and SODARs in complex terrain

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bradley, S [Physics Department, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland (New Zealand) and School of Computing, Science and Engineering, University of Salford, M5 4WT (United Kingdom)], E-mail: s.bradley@auckland.ac.nz

2008-05-01

All commercial LIDARs and SODARs are monostatic and hence sample distributed volumes to construct wind vector components. We use an analytic potential flow model to estimate errors arising for a range of LIDAR and SODAR configurations on hills and escarpments. Wind speed errors peak at a height relevant to wind turbines and can be typically 20%.

Offshore winds mapped from satellite remote sensing

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hasager, Charlotte Bay

2014-01-01

the uncertainty on the model results on the offshore wind resource, it is necessary to compare model results with observations. Observations from ground-based wind lidar and satellite remote sensing are the two main technologies that can provide new types of offshore wind data at relatively low cost....... The advantages of microwave satellite remote sensing are 1) horizontal spatial coverage, 2) long data archives and 3) high spatial detail both in the coastal zone and of far-field wind farm wake. Passive microwave ocean wind speed data are available since 1987 with up to 6 observations per day with near...

Ocean surface waves in Hurricane Ike (2008) and Superstorm Sandy (2012): Coupled model predictions and observations

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Shuyi S.; Curcic, Milan

2016-07-01

Forecasting hurricane impacts of extreme winds and flooding requires accurate prediction of hurricane structure and storm-induced ocean surface waves days in advance. The waves are complex, especially near landfall when the hurricane winds and water depth varies significantly and the surface waves refract, shoal and dissipate. In this study, we examine the spatial structure, magnitude, and directional spectrum of hurricane-induced ocean waves using a high resolution, fully coupled atmosphere-wave-ocean model and observations. The coupled model predictions of ocean surface waves in Hurricane Ike (2008) over the Gulf of Mexico and Superstorm Sandy (2012) in the northeastern Atlantic and coastal region are evaluated with the NDBC buoy and satellite altimeter observations. Although there are characteristics that are general to ocean waves in both hurricanes as documented in previous studies, wave fields in Ike and Sandy possess unique properties due mostly to the distinct wind fields and coastal bathymetry in the two storms. Several processes are found to significantly modulate hurricane surface waves near landfall. First, the phase speed and group velocities decrease as the waves become shorter and steeper in shallow water, effectively increasing surface roughness and wind stress. Second, the bottom-induced refraction acts to turn the waves toward the coast, increasing the misalignment between the wind and waves. Third, as the hurricane translates over land, the left side of the storm center is characterized by offshore winds over very short fetch, which opposes incoming swell. Landfalling hurricanes produce broader wave spectra overall than that of the open ocean. The front-left quadrant is most complex, where the combination of windsea, swell propagating against the wind, increasing wind-wave stress, and interaction with the coastal topography requires a fully coupled model to meet these challenges in hurricane wave and surge prediction.

COOP Wind and Radiation Observations

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Wind and radiation data from stations in the National Weather Service Cooperative Observers Network. Some precipitation and pressure forms are mistakenly placed in...

Bringing satellite winds to hub-height

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Badger, Merete; Pena Diaz, Alfredo; Bredesen, Rolv Erlend

2012-01-01

Satellite observations of the ocean surface can provide detailed information about the spatial wind variability over large areas. This is very valuable for the mapping of wind resources offshore where other measurements are costly and sparse. Satellite sensors operating at microwave frequencies...... measure the amount of radar backscatter from the sea surface, which is a function of the instant wind speed, wind direction, and satellite viewing geometry. A major limitation related to wind retrievals from satellite observations is that existing empirical model functions relate the radar backscatter...... to wind speed at the height 10 m only. The extrapolation of satellite wind fields to higher heights, which are more relevant for wind energy, remains a challenge which cannot be addressed by means of satellite data alone. As part of the EU-NORSEWInD project (2008-12), a hybrid method has been developed...

The Effect of the South Asia Monsoon on the Wind Sea and Swell Patterns in the Arabian Sea

Science.gov (United States)

Semedo, Alvaro

2015-04-01

Ocean surface gravity waves have a considerable impact on coastal and offshore infrastructures, and are determinant on ship design and routing. But waves also play an important role on the coastal dynamics and beach erosion, and modulate the exchanges of momentum, and mass and other scalars between the atmosphere and the ocean. A constant quantitative and qualitative knowledge of the wave patterns is therefore needed. There are two types of waves at the ocean surface: wind-sea and swell. Wind-sea waves are growing waves under the direct influence of local winds; as these waves propagate away from their generation area, or when their phase speed overcomes the local wind speed, they are called swell. Swell waves can propagate thousands of kilometers across entire ocean basins. The qualitative analysis of ocean surface waves has been the focus of several recent studies, from the wave climate to the air-sea interaction community. The reason for this interest lies mostly in the fact that waves have an impact on the lower atmosphere, and that the air-sea coupling is different depending on the wave regime. Waves modulate the exchange of momentum, heat, and mass across the air-sea interface, and this modulation is different and dependent on the prevalence of one type of waves: wind sea or swell. For fully developed seas the coupling between the ocean-surface and the overlaying atmosphere can be seen as quasi-perfect, in a sense that the momentum transfer and energy dissipation at the ocean surface are in equilibrium. This can only occur in special areas of the Ocean, either in marginal seas, with limited fetch, or in Open Ocean, in areas with strong and persistent wind speed with little or no variation in direction. One of these areas is the Arabian Sea, along the coasts of Somalia, Yemen and Oman. The wind climate in the Arabian sea is under the direct influence of the South Asia monsoon, where the wind blows steady from the northeast during the boreal winter, and

Relationship of oceanic whitecap coverage to wind speed and wind history

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Callaghan, A.; Leeuw, G. de; Cohen, L.; O'Dowd, C.D.

2008-01-01

Sea surface images obtained during the 2006 Marine Aerosol Production (MAP) campaign in the North East Atlantic were analysed for values of percentage whitecap coverage (W). Values of W are presented for wind speeds up to circa 23 m s-1. The W data were divided into two overlapping groups and a

Study on the influence of attitude angle on lidar wind measurement results

Science.gov (United States)

Han, Xiaochen; Dou, Peilin; Xue, Yangyang

2017-11-01

When carrying on wind profile measurement of offshore wind farm by shipborne Doppler lidar technique, the ship platform often produces motion response under the action of ocean environment load. In order to measure the performance of shipborne lidar, this paper takes two lidar wind measurement results as the research object, simulating the attitude of the ship in the ocean through the three degree of freedom platform, carrying on the synchronous observation test of the wind profile, giving an example of comparing the wind measurement data of two lidars, and carrying out the linear regression statistical analysis for all the experimental correlation data. The results show that the attitude angle will affect the precision of the lidar, The influence of attitude angle on the accuracy of lidar is uncertain. It is of great significance to the application of shipborne Doppler lidar wind measurement technology in the application of wind resources assessment in offshore wind power projects.

Consistent Feature Extraction From Vector Fields: Combinatorial Representations and Analysis Under Local Reference Frames

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bhatia, Harsh [Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States)

2015-05-01

This dissertation presents research on addressing some of the contemporary challenges in the analysis of vector fields—an important type of scientific data useful for representing a multitude of physical phenomena, such as wind flow and ocean currents. In particular, new theories and computational frameworks to enable consistent feature extraction from vector fields are presented. One of the most fundamental challenges in the analysis of vector fields is that their features are defined with respect to reference frames. Unfortunately, there is no single “correct” reference frame for analysis, and an unsuitable frame may cause features of interest to remain undetected, thus creating serious physical consequences. This work develops new reference frames that enable extraction of localized features that other techniques and frames fail to detect. As a result, these reference frames objectify the notion of “correctness” of features for certain goals by revealing the phenomena of importance from the underlying data. An important consequence of using these local frames is that the analysis of unsteady (time-varying) vector fields can be reduced to the analysis of sequences of steady (timeindependent) vector fields, which can be performed using simpler and scalable techniques that allow better data management by accessing the data on a per-time-step basis. Nevertheless, the state-of-the-art analysis of steady vector fields is not robust, as most techniques are numerical in nature. The residing numerical errors can violate consistency with the underlying theory by breaching important fundamental laws, which may lead to serious physical consequences. This dissertation considers consistency as the most fundamental characteristic of computational analysis that must always be preserved, and presents a new discrete theory that uses combinatorial representations and algorithms to provide consistency guarantees during vector field analysis along with the uncertainty

Grid-connected inverter for wind power generation system

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

YANG Yong; RUAN Yi; SHEN Huan-qing; TANG Yan-yan; YANG Ying

2009-01-01

In wind power generation system the grid-connected inverter is an important section for energy conversion and transmission, of which the performance has a direct influence on the entire wind power generation system. The mathematical model of the grid-connected inverter is deduced firstly. Then, the space vector pulse width modulation (SVPWM) is analyzed. The power factor can be controlled close to unity, leading or lagging, which is realized based on PI-type current controller and grid voltage vector-oriented control. The control strategy is verified by the simulation and experimental results with a good sinusoidal current, a small harmonic component and a fast dynamic response.

Ocean Chlorophyll as a Precursor of ENSO: An Earth System Modeling Study

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Jong-Yeon; Dunne, John P.; Stock, Charles A.

2018-02-01

Ocean chlorophyll concentration, a proxy for phytoplankton, is strongly influenced by internal ocean dynamics such as those associated with El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Observations show that ocean chlorophyll responses to ENSO generally lead sea surface temperature (SST) responses in the equatorial Pacific. A long-term global Earth system model simulation incorporating marine biogeochemical processes also exhibits a preceding chlorophyll response. In contrast to simulated SST anomalies, which significantly lag the wind-driven subsurface heat response to ENSO, chlorophyll anomalies respond rapidly. Iron was found to be the key factor connecting the simulated surface chlorophyll anomalies to the subsurface ocean response. Westerly wind bursts decrease central Pacific chlorophyll by reducing iron supply through wind-driven thermocline deepening but increase western Pacific chlorophyll by enhancing the influx of coastal iron from the maritime continent. Our results mechanistically support the potential for chlorophyll-based indices to inform seasonal ENSO forecasts beyond previously identified SST-based indices.

The 2015-16 El Niño - Birth, Evolution and Teleconnections from Scatterometer Observations of the Ocean Surface Winds

Science.gov (United States)

Hristova-Veleva, S. M.; Lee, T.; Stiles, B. W.; Rodriguez, E.; Turk, J.; Haddad, Z. S.

2016-12-01

The 2015-16 El Niño is one of the strongest events observed during the modern instrumentation period, rivaling the two big ones observed by satellites during 1982-83 and 1997-98. Yet, the precipitation anomalies differ from the expectations that were based on these two events. While El Niño events have a significant impact on the entire Earth System, they are most easily visible in measurements of sea surface temperature (SST), sea surface height (SSH) and ocean winds near the surface. In fact, the signature eastward-blowing anomalous surface winds in the Western and Central Tropical Pacific are the pre-cursor and the main driver of the El Nino events. Here we use observations from NASA's RapidScat, EUMETSAT's ASCAT and also from collocated ECMWF analysis to monitor the evolution of the anomalous winds associated with the 2015-16 El Niño. To detect the El Nino signal, we first compute monthly means of the wind speed, wind components and wind convergence. We then perform a low-pass filter to extract the components of the larger-scale circulation and compute the 2015-2016 anomalies with respect to the corresponding months of 2014-2015. We find fast-evolving wind anomalies and relate them to the evolution of the SST field as depicted in the observations-based OSTIA product. Furthermore, we investigate the relationship between the GPM-observed precipitation and the surface wind convergence observed by the scatterometers. El Niño is known to have basin to global scale teleconnections. In addition to the characterization of the changes in the tropical Pacific, we will also describe the associated changes in the North and South Pacific. In particular, a strong anticyclonic anomaly is observed in the north-eastern Pacific. This anomalous circulation is likely associated with the subsidence (divergent) region of a stronger-than-normal Hadley cell, leading to modification of the midlatitude storm tracks and the related precipitation anomalies. Furthermore, these

Demonstration of an efficient interpolation technique of inverse time and distance for Oceansat-2 wind measurements at 6-hourly intervals

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J Swain

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Indian Space Research Organization had launched Oceansat-2 on 23 September 2009, and the scatterometer onboard was a space-borne sensor capable of providing ocean surface winds (both speed and direction over the globe for a mission life of 5 years. The observations of ocean surface winds from such a space-borne sensor are the potential source of data covering the global oceans and useful for driving the state-of-the-art numerical models for simulating ocean state if assimilated/blended with weather prediction model products. In this study, an efficient interpolation technique of inverse distance and time is demonstrated using the Oceansat-2 wind measurements alone for a selected month of June 2010 to generate gridded outputs. As the data are available only along the satellite tracks and there are obvious data gaps due to various other reasons, Oceansat-2 winds were subjected to spatio-temporal interpolation, and 6-hour global wind fields for the global oceans were generated over 1 × 1 degree grid resolution. Such interpolated wind fields can be used to drive the state-of-the-art numerical models to predict/hindcast ocean-state so as to experiment and test the utility/performance of satellite measurements alone in the absence of blended fields. The technique can be tested for other satellites, which provide wind speed as well as direction data. However, the accuracy of input winds is obviously expected to have a perceptible influence on the predicted ocean-state parameters. Here, some attempts are also made to compare the interpolated Oceansat-2 winds with available buoy measurements and it was found that they are reasonably in good agreement with a correlation coefficient of R  > 0.8 and mean deviation 1.04 m/s and 25° for wind speed and direction, respectively.

Wind Farm Wake: The Horns Rev Photo Case

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hasager, Charlotte Bay; Rasmussen, Leif; Peña, Alfredo

2013-01-01

The aim of the paper is to examine the nowadays well-known wind farm wake photographs taken on 12 February 2008 at the offshore Horns Rev 1 wind farm. The meteorological conditions are described from observations from several satellite sensors quantifying clouds, surface wind vectors and sea surf...... in the wake regions with relatively high axial velocities and high turbulent kinetic energy. The wind speed is near cut-in and most turbines produce very little power. The rotational pattern of spiraling bands produces the large-scale structure of the wake fog....

Wind Speed Influences on Marine Aerosol Optical Depth

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Colin O'Dowd

2010-01-01

Full Text Available The Mulcahy (Mulcahy et al., 2008 power-law parameterization, derived at the coastal Atlantic station Mace Head, between clean marine aerosol optical depth (AOD and wind speed is compared to open ocean MODIS-derived AOD versus wind speed. The reported AOD versus wind speed (U was a function of ∼U2. The open ocean MODIS-derived AOD at 550 nm and 860 nm wavelengths, while in good agreement with the general magnitude of the Mulcahy parameterization, follows a power-law with the exponent ranging from 0.72 to 2.47 for a wind speed range of 2–18 m s−1. For the four cases examined, some MODIS cases underestimated AOD while other cases overestimated AOD relative to the Mulcahy scheme. Overall, the results from MODIS support the general power-law relationship of Mulcahy, although some linear cases were also encountered in the MODIS dataset. Deviations also arise between MODIS and Mulcahy at higher wind speeds (>15 m s−1, where MODIS-derived AOD returns lower values as compared to Mulcahy. The results also support the suggestion than wind generated sea spray, under moderately high winds, can rival anthropogenic pollution plumes advecting out into marine environments with wind driven AOD contributing to AOD values approaching 0.3.

Temperature profile and other data collected using current meter from the CHAIN from the Atlantic Ocean in part of the International Decade of Ocean Exploration / Mid-Ocean Dynamics Experiment from 12 February 1969 to 16 March 1972 (NODC Accession 7601355)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Temperature profile, current meter, and wind speed/direction data were collected using current meter from the TRIDENT, KNORR, and BILLIE 2 in the Atlantic Ocean from...

Ocean Surface Wind Speed of Hurricane Helene Observed by SAR

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Xu, Qing; Cheng, Yongcun; Li, Xiaofeng

2011-01-01

Prediction System (NOGAPS) model, C-band geophysical model functions (GMFs) which describe the normalized radar cross section (NRCS) dependence on the wind speed and the geometry of radar observations (i.e., incidence angle and azimuth angle with respect to wind direction) such as CMOD5 and newly developed......The hurricanes can be detected by many remote sensors, but synthetic aperture radar (SAR) can yield high-resolution (sub-kilometer) and low-level wind information that cannot be seen below the cloud by other sensors. In this paper, an assessment of SAR capability of monitoring high...

Turbulence Simulation of Laboratory Wind-Wave Interaction in High Winds and Upscaling to Ocean Conditions

Science.gov (United States)

2016-12-22

Oceanogr., 46, 1377-1397 Cebeci, T. & P. Bradshaw, 1988: physical and computational aspects of convective heat transfer , Springer-Verlag, p.487...on surface properties and flow separation. Strongly-forced wind seas are characterized by enhanced group modulation , as significant additional...energy flux from the wind augments the hydrodynamic modulations . Using compact steep chirped wave packets, we investigated for the first time the

Wind and Temperature Spectrometry of the Upper Atmosphere in Low-Earth Orbit

Science.gov (United States)

Herrero, Federico

2011-01-01

Wind and Temperature Spectrometry (WATS) is a new approach to measure the full wind vector, temperature, and relative densities of major neutral species in the Earth's thermosphere. The method uses an energy-angle spectrometer moving through the tenuous upper atmosphere to measure directly the angular and energy distributions of the air stream that enters the spectrometer. The angular distribution gives the direction of the total velocity of the air entering the spectrometer, and the energy distribution gives the magnitude of the total velocity. The wind velocity vector is uniquely determined since the measured total velocity depends on the wind vector and the orbiting velocity vector. The orbiting spectrometer moves supersonically, Mach 8 or greater, through the air and must point within a few degrees of its orbital velocity vector (the ram direction). Pointing knowledge is critical; for example, pointing errors 0.1 lead to errors of about 10 m/s in the wind. The WATS method may also be applied without modification to measure the ion-drift vector, ion temperature, and relative ion densities of major ionic species in the ionosphere. In such an application it may be called IDTS: Ion-Drift Temperature Spectrometry. A spectrometer-based coordinate system with one axis instantaneously pointing along the ram direction makes it possible to transform the Maxwellian velocity distribution of the air molecules to a Maxwellian energy-angle distribution for the molecular flux entering the spectrometer. This implementation of WATS is called the gas kinetic method (GKM) because it is applied to the case of the Maxwellian distribution. The WATS method follows from the recognition that in a supersonic platform moving at 8,000 m/s, the measurement of small wind velocities in the air on the order of a few 100 m/s and less requires precise knowledge of the angle of incidence of the neutral atoms and molecules. The same is true for the case of ion-drift measurements. WATS also

Measuring tropospheric wind with microwave sounders

Science.gov (United States)

Lambrigtsen, B.; Su, H.; Turk, J.; Hristova-Veleva, S. M.; Dang, V. T.

2017-12-01

In its 2007 "Decadal Survey" of earth science missions for NASA the U.S. National Research Council recommended that a Doppler wind lidar be developed for a three-dimensional tropospheric winds mission ("3D-Winds"). The technology required for such a mission has not yet been developed, and it is expected that the next Decadal Survey, planned to be released by the end of 2017, will put additional emphasis on the still pressing need for wind measurements from space. The first Decadal Survey also called for a geostationary microwave sounder (GMS) on a Precipitation and All-weather Temperature and Humidity (PATH) mission, which could be used to measure wind from space. Such a sounder, the Geostationary Synthetic Thinned Aperture Radiometer (GeoSTAR), has been developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The PATH mission has not yet been funded by NASA, but a low-cost subset of PATH, GeoStorm has been proposed as a hosted payload on a commercial communications satellite. Both PATH and GeoStorm would obtain frequent (every 15 minutes of better) measurements of tropospheric water vapor profiles, and they can be used to derive atmospheric motion vector (AMV) wind profiles, even in the presence of clouds. Measurement of wind is particularly important in the tropics, where the atmosphere is largely not in thermal balance and wind estimates cannot generally be derived from temperature and pressure fields. We report on simulation studies of AMV wind vectors derived from a GMS and from a cluster of low-earth-orbiting (LEO) small satellites (e.g., CubeSats). The results of two separate simulation studies are very encouraging and show that a ±2 m/s wind speed precision is attainable, which would satisfy WMO requirements. A GMS observing system in particular, which can be implemented now, would enable significant progress in the study of atmospheric dynamics. Copyright 2017 California Institute of Technology. Government sponsorship acknowledged

Temporal and spatial patterns in wind stress and wind stress curl over the central Southern California Bight

Science.gov (United States)

Noble, Marlene A.; Rosenberger, Kurt J.; Rosenfeld, Leslie K.; Robertson, George L.

2012-01-01

In 2001, the U.S. Geological Survey, together with several other federal and municipal agencies, began a series of field programs to determine along and cross-shelf transport patterns over the continental shelves in the central Southern California Bight. As a part of these programs, moorings that monitor winds were deployed off the Palos Verdes peninsula and within San Pedro Bay for six 3–4 month summer and winter periods between 2001 and 2008. In addition, nearly continuous records of winds for this 7-year period were obtained from a terrestrial site at the coast and from a basin site offshore of the long-term coastal site. The mean annual winds are downcoast at all sites. The alongshelf components of wind stress, which are the largest part of the low-frequency wind stress fields, are well correlated between basin, shelf and coastal sites. On average, the amplitude of alongshelf fluctuations in wind stress are 3–4 times larger over the offshore basin, compared to the coastal site, irrespective of whether the fluctuations represent the total, or just the correlated portion of the wind stress field. The curl in the large-scale wind stress tends to be positive, especially in the winter season when the mean wind stress is downcoast and larger at the offshore basin site than at the beach. However, since the fluctuation in wind stress amplitudes are usually larger than the mean, periods of weak negative curl do occur, especially in the summer season when the largest normalized differences in the amplitude of wind stress fluctuations are found in the nearshore region of the coastal ocean. Even though the low-frequency wind stress field is well-correlated over the continental shelf and offshore basins, out to distances of 35 km or more from the coast, winds even 10 km inshore of the beach do not represent the coastal wind field, at least in the summer months. The seasonal changes in the spatial structures in wind stress amplitudes suggest that an assessment of the

Wind turbine power coefficient estimation by soft computing methodologies: Comparative study

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shamshirband, Shahaboddin; Petković, Dalibor; Saboohi, Hadi; Anuar, Nor Badrul; Inayat, Irum; Akib, Shatirah; Ćojbašić, Žarko; Nikolić, Vlastimir; Mat Kiah, Miss Laiha; Gani, Abdullah

2014-01-01

Highlights: • Variable speed operation of wind turbine to increase power generation. • Changeability and fluctuation of wind has to be accounted. • To build an effective prediction model of wind turbine power coefficient. • The impact of the variation in the blade pitch angle and tip speed ratio. • Support vector regression methodology application as predictive methodology. - Abstract: Wind energy has become a large contender of traditional fossil fuel energy, particularly with the successful operation of multi-megawatt sized wind turbines. However, reasonable wind speed is not adequately sustainable everywhere to build an economical wind farm. In wind energy conversion systems, one of the operational problems is the changeability and fluctuation of wind. In most cases, wind speed can vacillate rapidly. Hence, quality of produced energy becomes an important problem in wind energy conversion plants. Several control techniques have been applied to improve the quality of power generated from wind turbines. In this study, the polynomial and radial basis function (RBF) are applied as the kernel function of support vector regression (SVR) to estimate optimal power coefficient value of the wind turbines. Instead of minimizing the observed training error, SVR p oly and SVR r bf attempt to minimize the generalization error bound so as to achieve generalized performance. The experimental results show that an improvement in predictive accuracy and capability of generalization can be achieved by the SVR approach in compare to other soft computing methodologies

Application of SMAP Data for Ocean Surface Remote Sensing

Science.gov (United States)

Fore, A.; Yueh, S. H.; Tang, W.; Stiles, B. W.; Hayashi, A.

2017-12-01

The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission was launched January 31st, 2015. It is designed to measure the soil moisture over land using a combined active / passive L-band system. Due to the Aquarius mission, L-band model functions for ocean winds and salinity are mature and are directly applicable to the SMAP mission. In contrast to Aquarius, the higher resolution and scanning geometry of SMAP allow for wide-swath ocean winds and salinities to be retrieved. In this talk we present the SMAP Sea Surface Salinity (SSS) and extreme winds dataset and its performance. First we discuss the heritage of SMAP SSS algorithms, showing that SMAP and Aquarius show excellent agreement in the ocean surface roughness correction. Then, we give an overview of some newly developed algorithms that are only relevant to the SMAP system; a new galaxy correction and land correction enabling SSS retrievals up to 40 km from coast. We discuss recent improvements to the SMAP data processing for version 4.0. Next we compare the performance of the SMAP SSS to in-situ salinity measurements obtained from ARGO floats, tropical moored buoys, and ship-based data. SMAP SSS has accuracy of 0.2 PSU on a monthly basis compared to ARGO gridded data in tropics and mid-latitudes. In tropical oceans, time series comparison of salinity measured at 1 m depth by moored buoys indicates SMAP can track large salinity changes within a month. Synergetic analysis of SMAP, SMOS, and Argo data allows us to identify and exclude erroneous buoy data from assessment of SMAP SSS. The resulting SMAP-buoy matchup analysis gives a mean standard deviation (STD) of 0.22 PSU and correlation of 0.73 on weekly scale; at monthly scale the mean STD decreased to 0.17 PSU and the correlation increased to 0.8. In addition to SSS, SMAP provides a view into tropical cyclones having much higher sensitivity than traditional scatterometers. We validate the high-winds using collocations with SFMR during tropical cyclones as well as

Wind, METOP ASCAT, 0.25 degrees, Global, Near Real Time, Modulus

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — NOAA CoastWatch distributes near real time wind divergence data originating with wind velocity measurements from the ASCAT instrument onboard EUMETSAT's ASCAT...

Wind, METOP ASCAT, 0.25 degrees, Global, Near Real Time, Zonal

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — NOAA CoastWatch distributes near real time wind divergence data originating with wind velocity measurements from the ASCAT instrument onboard EUMETSAT's ASCAT...

Quality and Control of Water Vapor Winds

Science.gov (United States)

Jedlovec, Gary J.; Atkinson, Robert J.

1996-01-01

Water vapor imagery from the geostationary satellites such as GOES, Meteosat, and GMS provides synoptic views of dynamical events on a continual basis. Because the imagery represents a non-linear combination of mid- and upper-tropospheric thermodynamic parameters (three-dimensional variations in temperature and humidity), video loops of these image products provide enlightening views of regional flow fields, the movement of tropical and extratropical storm systems, the transfer of moisture between hemispheres and from the tropics to the mid- latitudes, and the dominance of high pressure systems over particular regions of the Earth. Despite the obvious larger scale features, the water vapor imagery contains significant image variability down to the single 8 km GOES pixel. These features can be quantitatively identified and tracked from one time to the next using various image processing techniques. Merrill et al. (1991), Hayden and Schmidt (1992), and Laurent (1993) have documented the operational procedures and capabilities of NOAA and ESOC to produce cloud and water vapor winds. These techniques employ standard correlation and template matching approaches to wind tracking and use qualitative and quantitative procedures to eliminate bad wind vectors from the wind data set. Techniques have also been developed to improve the quality of the operational winds though robust editing procedures (Hayden and Veldon 1991). These quality and control approaches have limitations, are often subjective, and constrain wind variability to be consistent with model derived wind fields. This paper describes research focused on the refinement of objective quality and control parameters for water vapor wind vector data sets. New quality and control measures are developed and employed to provide a more robust wind data set for climate analysis, data assimilation studies, as well as operational weather forecasting. The parameters are applicable to cloud-tracked winds as well with minor

Wave and Wind Model Performance Metrics Tools

Science.gov (United States)

Choi, J. K.; Wang, D. W.

2016-02-01

Continual improvements and upgrades of Navy ocean wave and wind models are essential to the assurance of battlespace environment predictability of ocean surface wave and surf conditions in support of Naval global operations. Thus, constant verification and validation of model performance is equally essential to assure the progress of model developments and maintain confidence in the predictions. Global and regional scale model evaluations may require large areas and long periods of time. For observational data to compare against, altimeter winds and waves along the tracks from past and current operational satellites as well as moored/drifting buoys can be used for global and regional coverage. Using data and model runs in previous trials such as the planned experiment, the Dynamics of the Adriatic in Real Time (DART), we demonstrated the use of accumulated altimeter wind and wave data over several years to obtain an objective evaluation of the performance the SWAN (Simulating Waves Nearshore) model running in the Adriatic Sea. The assessment provided detailed performance of wind and wave models by using cell-averaged statistical variables maps with spatial statistics including slope, correlation, and scatter index to summarize model performance. Such a methodology is easily generalized to other regions and at global scales. Operational technology currently used by subject matter experts evaluating the Navy Coastal Ocean Model and the Hybrid Coordinate Ocean Model can be expanded to evaluate wave and wind models using tools developed for ArcMAP, a GIS application developed by ESRI. Recent inclusion of altimeter and buoy data into a format through the Naval Oceanographic Office's (NAVOCEANO) quality control system and the netCDF standards applicable to all model output makes it possible for the fusion of these data and direct model verification. Also, procedures were developed for the accumulation of match-ups of modelled and observed parameters to form a data base

Advanced control of direct-driven PMSG generator in wind turbine system

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gajewski Piotr

2016-12-01

Full Text Available The paper presents the advanced control system of the wind energy conversion with a variable speed wind turbine. The considered system consists of a wind turbine with the permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG, machine side converter (MSC, grid side converter (GSC and control circuits. The mathematical models of a wind turbine system, the PMSG generator and converters have been described. The control algorithms of the converter systems based on the methods of vector control have been applied. In the advanced control system of the machine side converter the optimal MPPT control method has been used. Additionally the pitch control scheme is included in order to achieve the limitation of maximum power and to prevent mechanical damage of the wind turbine. In the control system of the grid side converter the control of active and reactive power has been applied with the application of Voltage Oriented Control (VOC. The performance of the considered wind energy system has been studied by digital simulation. The results of simulation studies confirmed the good effectiveness of the considered wind turbine system and very good performance of the proposed methods of vector control and control systems.

Impacts of Wind Stress Changes on the Global Heat Transport, Baroclinic Instability, and the Thermohaline Circulation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jeferson Prietsch Machado

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The wind stress is a measure of momentum transfer due to the relative motion between the atmosphere and the ocean. This study aims to investigate the anomalous pattern of atmospheric and oceanic circulations due to 50% increase in the wind stress over the equatorial region and the Southern Ocean. In this paper we use a coupled climate model of intermediate complexity (SPEEDO. The results show that the intensification of equatorial wind stress causes a decrease in sea surface temperature in the tropical region due to increased upwelling and evaporative cooling. On the other hand, the intensification of wind stress over the Southern Ocean induces a regional increase in the air and sea surface temperatures which in turn leads to a reduction in Antarctic sea ice thickness. This occurs in association with changes in the global thermohaline circulation strengthening the rate of Antarctic Bottom Water formation and a weakening of the North Atlantic Deep Water. Moreover, changes in the Southern Hemisphere thermal gradient lead to modified atmospheric and oceanic heat transports reducing the storm tracks and baroclinic activity.

The role stratification on Indian ocean mixing under global warming

Science.gov (United States)

Praveen, V.; Valsala, V.; Ravindran, A. M.

2017-12-01

The impact of changes in Indian ocean stratification on mixing under global warming is examined. Previous studies on global warming and associated weakening of winds reported to increase the stratification of the world ocean leading to a reduction in mixing, increased acidity, reduced oxygen and there by a reduction in productivity. However this processes is not uniform and are also modulated by changes in wind pattern of the future. Our study evaluate the role of stratification and surface fluxes on mixing focusing northern Indian ocean. A dynamical downscaling study using Regional ocean Modelling system (ROMS) forced with stratification and surface fluxes from selected CMIP5 models are presented. Results from an extensive set of historical and Representative Concentration Pathways 8.5 (rcp8.5) scenario simulations are used to quantify the distinctive role of stratification on mixing.

A Novel Degradation Identification Method for Wind Turbine Pitch System

Science.gov (United States)

Guo, Hui-Dong

2018-04-01

It’s difficult for traditional threshold value method to identify degradation of operating equipment accurately. An novel degradation evaluation method suitable for wind turbine condition maintenance strategy implementation was proposed in this paper. Based on the analysis of typical variable-speed pitch-to-feather control principle and monitoring parameters for pitch system, a multi input multi output (MIMO) regression model was applied to pitch system, where wind speed, power generation regarding as input parameters, wheel rotation speed, pitch angle and motor driving currency for three blades as output parameters. Then, the difference between the on-line measurement and the calculated value from the MIMO regression model applying least square support vector machines (LSSVM) method was defined as the Observed Vector of the system. The Gaussian mixture model (GMM) was applied to fitting the distribution of the multi dimension Observed Vectors. Applying the model established, the Degradation Index was calculated using the SCADA data of a wind turbine damaged its pitch bearing retainer and rolling body, which illustrated the feasibility of the provided method.

WindScanner.dk - a new Remote Sensing based Research Infrastructure for on- and offshore Wind Energy Research

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mikkelsen, Torben

obtained in planetary boundary layer turbulent flow have been acquired from both ground-based and wind turbine-integrated space by time and space synchronized scanning lidars. Results to date include: turbulent inflow over complex terrain scanned in a horizontal-vertical 2D scan plane, and 2-dimensional...... and 3-dimensional wind vector scan measurements obtained during various WindScanner boundary-layer field campaigns. A special designed `2D upwind rotor plane scanning SpinnerLidar', mounted in the rotating spinner, and able to provide the wind turbine control systems with detailed upwind feed......-forward inflow information, is also investigated as a provider of rotor plane inflow for accurate power curve measurements. The instrument development involves both a short range (10 -200 m) and a long-range (100 - 6000 m) synchronized 3D scanning wind lidar system....

The Red Sea: An Arena for Wind-Wave Modeling in Enclosed Seas

KAUST Repository

Langodan, Sabique

2016-12-01

Wind and waves play a major role in important ocean dynamical processes, such as the exchange of heat, momentum and gases between atmosphere and ocean, that greatly contributes to the earth climate and marine lives. Knowledge on wind and wave weather and climate is crucial for a wide range of applications, including oceanographic studies, maritime activities and ocean engineering. Despite being one of the important world shipping routes, the wind-wave characteristics in the Red Sea are yet to be fully explored. Because of the scarcity of waves data in the Red Sea, numerical models become crucial and provide very powerful tools to extrapolate wind and wave data in space, and backward and forward in time. Unlike open oceans, enclosed basins wave have different characteristics, mainly because of their local generation processes. The complex orography on both sides of the Red Sea makes the local wind, and consequently wave, modeling very challenging. This thesis considers the modeling of wind-wave characteristics in the Red Sea, including their climate variability and trends using state-of-the-art numerical models and all available observations. Different approaches are investigated to model and understand the general and unusual wind and wave conditions in the basin using standard global meteorological products and customised regional wind and wave models. After studying and identifying the main characteristics of the wind-wave variability in the Red Sea, we demonstrate the importance of generating accurate atmospheric forcing through data assimilation for reliable wave simulations. In particular, we show that the state-of-the-art physical formulation of wave models is not suitable to model the unique situation of the two opposing wind-waves systems in the Red Sea Convergence Zone, and propose and successfully test a modification to the input and white-capping source functions to address this problem. We further investigate the climate variability and trends of wind

Simulation Tool for GNSS Ocean Surface Reflections

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Høeg, Per; von Benzon, Hans-Henrik; Durgonics, Tibor

2015-01-01

GNSS coherent and incoherent reflected signals have the potential of deriving large scale parameters of ocean surfaces, as barotropic variability, eddy currents and fronts, Rossby waves, coastal upwelling, mean ocean surfaceheights, and patterns of the general ocean circulation. In the reflection...... zone the measurements may deriveparameters as sea surface roughness, winds, waves, heights and tilts from the spectral measurements. Previous measurements from the top of mountains and airplanes have shown such results leading.The coming satellite missions, CYGNSS, COSMIC-2, and GEROS...

Study of large-scale vertical axis wind turbine wake through numerical modelling and fullscale experiments

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Immas, Alexandre; Kluczewska-Bordier, Joanna; Beneditti, Pascal

Offshore wind capacity is increasing exponentially over the years in Europe, taking advantage of the strong winds available over the ocean and of the political incentives to reduce greenhouse gases. The technology is however not yet competitive when compared to fossil fuels or onshore wind. One k...... horizontal axis wind turbine wind farm....... improvement that could make offshore wind more attractive is the reduction of the wake effect [1]. The latter corresponds to the velocity deficit generated by each wind turbine wake which affects the production of the others. This effect accounts for approximately 10% of the energy losses for a typical......Offshore wind capacity is increasing exponentially over the years in Europe, taking advantage of the strong winds available over the ocean and of the political incentives to reduce greenhouse gases. The technology is however not yet competitive when compared to fossil fuels or onshore wind. One key...

NOAA Climate Data Record (CDR) of Ocean Heat Fluxes, Version 2

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The NOAA Ocean Surface Bundle (OSB) Climate Data Record (CDR) consist of three parts: sea surface temperature; near-surface wind speed, air temperature, and specific...

Changing Arctic Ocean freshwater pathways.

Science.gov (United States)

Morison, James; Kwok, Ron; Peralta-Ferriz, Cecilia; Alkire, Matt; Rigor, Ignatius; Andersen, Roger; Steele, Mike

2012-01-04

Freshening in the Canada basin of the Arctic Ocean began in the 1990s and continued to at least the end of 2008. By then, the Arctic Ocean might have gained four times as much fresh water as comprised the Great Salinity Anomaly of the 1970s, raising the spectre of slowing global ocean circulation. Freshening has been attributed to increased sea ice melting and contributions from runoff, but a leading explanation has been a strengthening of the Beaufort High--a characteristic peak in sea level atmospheric pressure--which tends to accelerate an anticyclonic (clockwise) wind pattern causing convergence of fresh surface water. Limited observations have made this explanation difficult to verify, and observations of increasing freshwater content under a weakened Beaufort High suggest that other factors must be affecting freshwater content. Here we use observations to show that during a time of record reductions in ice extent from 2005 to 2008, the dominant freshwater content changes were an increase in the Canada basin balanced by a decrease in the Eurasian basin. Observations are drawn from satellite data (sea surface height and ocean-bottom pressure) and in situ data. The freshwater changes were due to a cyclonic (anticlockwise) shift in the ocean pathway of Eurasian runoff forced by strengthening of the west-to-east Northern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation characterized by an increased Arctic Oscillation index. Our results confirm that runoff is an important influence on the Arctic Ocean and establish that the spatial and temporal manifestations of the runoff pathways are modulated by the Arctic Oscillation, rather than the strength of the wind-driven Beaufort Gyre circulation.

Current direction, wind wave spectra, and CTD data from moored current meter and CTD casts in the North Atlantic Ocean from 1982-09-15 to 1983-09-15 (NODC Accession 8500148)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Current direction, wind wave spectra, and CTD data were collected using moored current meter and CTD casts in the Gulf of Mexico from September 3, 1982 to September...

Indian Ocean warming modulates Pacific climate change

Science.gov (United States)

Luo, Jing-Jia; Sasaki, Wataru; Masumoto, Yukio

2012-01-01

It has been widely believed that the tropical Pacific trade winds weakened in the last century and would further decrease under a warmer climate in the 21st century. Recent high-quality observations, however, suggest that the tropical Pacific winds have actually strengthened in the past two decades. Precise causes of the recent Pacific climate shift are uncertain. Here we explore how the enhanced tropical Indian Ocean warming in recent decades favors stronger trade winds in the western Pacific via the atmosphere and hence is likely to have contributed to the La Niña-like state (with enhanced east–west Walker circulation) through the Pacific ocean–atmosphere interactions. Further analysis, based on 163 climate model simulations with centennial historical and projected external radiative forcing, suggests that the Indian Ocean warming relative to the Pacific’s could play an important role in modulating the Pacific climate changes in the 20th and 21st centuries. PMID:23112174

Interaction between water and wind as a driver of passive dispersal in mangroves.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tom Van der Stocken

Full Text Available Although knowledge on dispersal patterns is essential for predicting long-term population dynamics, critical information on the modalities of passive dispersal and potential interactions between vectors is often missing. Here, we use mangrove propagules with a wide variety of morphologies to investigate the interaction between water and wind as a driver of passive dispersal. We imposed 16 combinations of wind and hydrodynamic conditions in a flume tank, using propagules of six important mangrove species (and genera, resulting in a set of dispersal morphologies that covers most variation present in mangrove propagules worldwide. Additionally, we discussed the broader implications of the outcome of this flume study on the potential of long distance dispersal for mangrove propagules in nature, applying a conceptual model to a natural mangrove system in Gazi Bay (Kenya. Overall, the effect of wind on dispersal depended on propagule density (g l(-1. The low-density Heritiera littoralis propagules were most affected by wind, while the high-density vertically floating propagules of Ceriops tagal and Bruguiera gymnorrhiza were least affected. Avicennia marina, and horizontally floating Rhizophora mucronata and C. tagal propagules behaved similarly. Morphological propagule traits, such as the dorsal sail of H. littoralis, explained another part of the interspecific differences. Within species, differences in dispersal velocities can be explained by differences in density and for H. littoralis also by variations in the shape of the dorsal sail. Our conceptual model illustrates that different propagule types have a different likelihood of reaching the open ocean depending on prevailing water and wind currents. Results suggest that in open water, propagule traits (density, morphology, and floating orientation appear to determine the effect of water and wind currents on dispersal dynamics. This has important implications for inter- and intraspecific

Orographic effects on tropical climate in a coupled ocean-atmosphere general circulation model

Science.gov (United States)

Okajima, Hideki

Large-scale mountain modifies the atmospheric circulation directly through dynamic and thermodynamic process, and also indirectly through the interaction with the ocean. To investigate orographic impacts on tropical climate, a fully coupled general circulation model (CGCM) is developed by coupling a state-of-the-art atmospheric general circulation model and an ocean general circulation model. With realistic boundary conditions, the CGCM produces a reasonable climatology of sea surface temperature (SST), surface winds, and precipitation. When global mountains are removed, the model climatology displays substantial changes in both the mean-state and the seasonal cycle. The equatorial eastern Pacific SST acquires a semi-annual component as inter-tropical convergence zone (ITCZ) flips and flops across the equator following the seasonal migration of the sun. Without the Andes, wet air flows into the southeastern tropical Pacific from the humid Amazon, which weakens the meridional asymmetry during the Peruvian warm season (February-April). In addition, the northeasterly trade winds are enhanced north of the equator without the orographic blocking of Central American mountains and cools SST. Triggered by the SST cooling north and moistening south of the equator, the wind-evaporation-SST (WES) feedback further weakens the meridional asymmetry and prolongs the southern ITCZ. In the Atlantic Ocean, the equatorial cold tongue is substantially strengthened and develops a pronounced annual cycle in the absence of mountains. The easterly winds are overall enhanced over the equatorial Atlantic without orographic heating over the African highlands, developing a zonal asymmetry strengthened by the Bjerknes feedback. In the Indian Ocean, the thermocline shoals eastward and an equatorial cold tongue appears twice a year. During boreal summer, the Findlater jet is greatly weakened off Somalia and SST warms in the western Indian Ocean, forcing the equatorial easterly winds amplified

Offshore Wind Energy Permitting: A Survey of U.S. Project Developers

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Van Cleve, Frances B.; Copping, Andrea E.

2010-11-30

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has adopted a goal to generate 20% of the nation’s electricity from wind power by 2030. Achieving this “20% Wind Scenario” in 2030 requires acceleration of the current rate of wind project development. Offshore wind resources contribute substantially to the nation’s wind resource, yet to date no offshore wind turbines have been installed in the U.S. Progress developing offshore wind projects has been slowed by technological challenges, uncertainties about impacts to the marine environment, siting and permitting challenges, and viewshed concerns. To address challenges associated with siting and permitting, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) surveyed offshore wind project developers about siting and project development processes, their experience with the environmental permitting process, and the role of coastal and marine spatial planning (CMSP) in development of the offshore wind industry. Based on the responses to survey questions, we identify several priority recommendations to support offshore wind development. Recommendations also include considerations for developing supporting industries in the U.S. and how to use Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning (CMSP) to appropriately consider ocean energy among existing ocean uses. In this report, we summarize findings, discuss the implications, and suggest actions to improve the permitting and siting process.

75 FR 81637 - Commercial Lease for the Cape Wind Energy Project

Science.gov (United States)

2010-12-28

... Commercial Lease for the Cape Wind Energy Project AGENCY: Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and... Renewable Energy Development on the Outer Continental Shelf (``OCS'') for the Cape Wind Energy Project... requirements of 30 CFR 285.231. The Lease is for the Cape Wind Energy Project (``Project'') which grants Cape...

Performance of the CORDEX regional climate models in simulating offshore wind and wind potential

Science.gov (United States)

Kulkarni, Sumeet; Deo, M. C.; Ghosh, Subimal

2018-03-01

This study is oriented towards quantification of the skill addition by regional climate models (RCMs) in the parent general circulation models (GCMs) while simulating wind speed and wind potential with particular reference to the Indian offshore region. To arrive at a suitable reference dataset, the performance of wind outputs from three different reanalysis datasets is evaluated. The comparison across the RCMs and their corresponding parent GCMs is done on the basis of annual/seasonal wind statistics, intermodel bias, wind climatology, and classes of wind potential. It was observed that while the RCMs could simulate spatial variability of winds, well for certain subregions, they generally failed to replicate the overall spatial pattern, especially in monsoon and winter. Various causes of biases in RCMs were determined by assessing corresponding maps of wind vectors, surface temperature, and sea-level pressure. The results highlight the necessity to carefully assess the RCM-yielded winds before using them for sensitive applications such as coastal vulnerability and hazard assessment. A supplementary outcome of this study is in form of wind potential atlas, based on spatial distribution of wind classes. This could be beneficial in suitably identifying viable subregions for developing offshore wind farms by intercomparing both the RCM and GCM outcomes. It is encouraging that most of the RCMs and GCMs indicate that around 70% of the Indian offshore locations in monsoon would experience mean wind potential greater than 200 W/m2.

Multidecadal-scale adjustment of the ocean mixed layer heat budget in the tropics: examining ocean reanalyses

Science.gov (United States)

Cook, Kerry H.; Vizy, Edward K.; Sun, Xiaoming

2018-03-01

Distributions of ocean mixed layer temperature trends and trends in the net heat flux from the atmosphere differ, indicating the important role of the transport of heat within the ocean for determining temperature trends. Annual-mean, linear trends in the components of the tropical ocean mixed layer heat budget for 1980-2015 are diagnosed in 4 ocean reanalyses to improve our physical understanding of multidecadal-scale SST trends. The well-known temperature trend in the tropical Pacific, with cooling in the east and warming in the west, is reproduced in each reanalysis with high statistical significance. Cooling in the east is associated with negative trends in the net heat flux from the atmosphere and enhanced equatorial upwelling related to a strengthening of the subtropical cells. Negative trends in the net heat flux also occur in the western tropical Pacific, but advective warming associated with a strengthening and shoaling of the equatorial undercurrent overwhelms these negative trends. The strengthening of the equatorial undercurrent is consistent with enhanced easterly wind stress, which is applied to the ocean reanalyses, and differential sea level trends that enhance the negative zonal height gradient across the Pacific. The Pacific North Equatorial countercurrent is also strengthening in all 4 reanalyses in association with a strengthening of the sea level trough at 10°N in the central and eastern Pacific. All 4 ocean reanalyses produce warming of 0.1-0.3 K/decade in the North Atlantic with statistical significance levels ranging from below 90-99%. The Atlantic is similar to the Pacific in having the equatorial undercurrent strengthening, but indications of shoaling are less consistent in the reanalyses and the North Equatorial Countercurrent in the Atlantic is not strengthening. Large-scale ocean mixed layer warming trends in the Indian Ocean in the reanalyses are interrupted by some regional cooling close to the equator. Net surface heat flux trends

NORSEWInD satellite wind climatology

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hasager, Charlotte Bay; Badger, Merete; Mouche, Alexis

The EU-NORSEWInD project www.norsewind.eu has taken place from August 2008 to July 2012 (4 years). NORSEWInD is short for Northern Seas Wind Index database. In the project ocean surface wind observations from space have been retrieved, processed and analysed. The overall aim of the work...... is to provide new offshore wind climatology map for the entire area of interest based on satellite remote sensing. This has been based on Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) from Envisat ASAR using 9000 scenes re-processed with ECMWF wind direction and CMOD-IFR. The number of overlapping samples range from 450...... in the Irish Sea to more than 1200 in most of the Baltic Sea. Wind resource statistics include maps at 2 km spatial resolution of mean wind speed, Weibull A and k, and energy density at 10 m above sea level. Uncertainty estimates on the number of available samples for each of the four parameters are presented...

Seasonal Variability of Wind Sea and Swell Waves Climate along the Canary Current: The Local Wind Effect

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alvaro Semedo

2018-03-01

Full Text Available A climatology of wind sea and swell waves along the Canary eastern boundary current area, from west Iberia to Mauritania, is presented. The study is based on the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF reanalysis ERA-Interim. The wind regime along the Canary Current, along west Iberia and north-west Africa, varies significantly from winter to summer. High summer wind speeds generate high wind sea waves, particularly along the coasts of Morocco and Western Sahara. Lower winter wind speeds, along with stronger extratropical storms crossing the North Atlantic sub-basin up north lead to a predominance of swell waves in the area during from December to February. In summer, the coast parallel wind interacts with the coastal headlands, increasing the wind speed and the locally generated waves. The spatial patterns of the wind sea or swell regional wave fields are shown to be different from the open ocean, due to coastal geometry, fetch dimensions, and island sheltering.

Creating and building an ocean renewable energy cluster for Canada

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Protter, N.

2005-01-01

The Ocean Renewable Energy Group (OREG) is a collaboration between Canadian Industry, academia and government that provides leadership to advocate for and accelerate the development of a Canadian ocean renewable energy sector that can serve domestic needs and reach a global market. Approaches to ocean renewable energy were reviewed in this PowerPoint presentation. It was noted that no market leader in ocean renewable energy has emerged, but that the industry has the potential for a more rapid adoption curve than the wind power industry. The integration of ocean renewable energy with offshore wind power production was discussed, as well as hydrogen production, remote electrification, and the production of potable water through desalination. Various incentives and international demonstration projects were reviewed and the goals of OREG were outlined. The forming of strategic alliances with other global organizations was discussed, as well as OREG's plans to contribute to the education of sources of capital to facilitate the commercialization of Canadian technologies. It was noted that pilot plants are planned with BC Hydro in 2007. Issues concerning environmental assessments were discussed. It was suggested that as the cost of traditional generation rises, investment in ocean energy development may reduce risks to investors and ratepayers. Issues concerning funding were examined and the OREG strategy and action plan was reviewed. Research and development themes were outlined. It was suggested that British Columbia's ocean energy regime provides a unique competitive advantage, as did natural winds for Denmark in the early 1980s. Pioneer sites and the creation of a supportive climate were discussed, as well as issues concerning regulators and grid connection investment. A supply chain was outlined and details of various companies involved in ocean energy development were presented. refs., tabs., figs

Wind speed reductions by large-scale wind turbine deployments lower turbine efficiencies and set low wind power potentials

Science.gov (United States)

Miller, Lee; Kleidon, Axel

2017-04-01

Wind turbines generate electricity by removing kinetic energy from the atmosphere. Large numbers of wind turbines are likely to reduce wind speeds, which lowers estimates of electricity generation from what would be presumed from unaffected conditions. Here, we test how well wind power potentials that account for this effect can be estimated without explicitly simulating atmospheric dynamics. We first use simulations with an atmospheric general circulation model (GCM) that explicitly simulates the effects of wind turbines to derive wind power limits (GCM estimate), and compare them to a simple approach derived from the climatological conditions without turbines [vertical kinetic energy (VKE) estimate]. On land, we find strong agreement between the VKE and GCM estimates with respect to electricity generation rates (0.32 and 0.37 We m-2) and wind speed reductions by 42 and 44%. Over ocean, the GCM estimate is about twice the VKE estimate (0.59 and 0.29 We m-2) and yet with comparable wind speed reductions (50 and 42%). We then show that this bias can be corrected by modifying the downward momentum flux to the surface. Thus, large-scale limits to wind power can be derived from climatological conditions without explicitly simulating atmospheric dynamics. Consistent with the GCM simulations, the approach estimates that only comparatively few land areas are suitable to generate more than 1 We m-2 of electricity and that larger deployment scales are likely to reduce the expected electricity generation rate of each turbine. We conclude that these atmospheric effects are relevant for planning the future expansion of wind power.

Will surface winds weaken in response to global warming?

Science.gov (United States)

Ma, Jian; Foltz, Gregory R.; Soden, Brian J.; Huang, Gang; He, Jie; Dong, Changming

2016-12-01

The surface Walker and tropical tropospheric circulations have been inferred to slow down from historical observations and model projections, yet analysis of large-scale surface wind predictions is lacking. Satellite measurements of surface wind speed indicate strengthening trends averaged over the global and tropical oceans that are supported by precipitation and evaporation changes. Here we use corrected anemometer-based observations to show that the surface wind speed has not decreased in the averaged tropical oceans, despite its reduction in the region of the Walker circulation. Historical simulations and future projections for climate change also suggest a near-zero wind speed trend averaged in space, regardless of the Walker cell change. In the tropics, the sea surface temperature pattern effect acts against the large-scale circulation slow-down. For higher latitudes, the surface winds shift poleward along with the eddy-driven mid-latitude westerlies, resulting in a very small contribution to the global change in surface wind speed. Despite its importance for surface wind speed change, the influence of the SST pattern change on global-mean rainfall is insignificant since it cannot substantially alter the global energy balance. As a result, the precipitation response to global warming remains ‘muted’ relative to atmospheric moisture increase. Our results therefore show consistency between projections and observations of surface winds and precipitation.

NOAA NOS SOS, EXPERIMENTAL - Wind

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The NOAA NOS SOS server is part of the IOOS DIF SOS Project. The stations in this dataset have wind data. *These services are for testing and evaluation use only*...

Toward an optimal inversion method for synthetic aperture radar wind retrieval

OpenAIRE

Portabella, M.; Stoffelen, A.; Johannessen, Johnny A.

2002-01-01

In recent years, particular efforts have been made to derive wind fields over the oceans from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images. In contrast with the scatterometer, the SAR has a higher spatial resolution and therefore has the potential to provide higher resolution wind information. Since there are at least two geophysical parameters (wind speed and wind direction) modulating the single SAR backscatter measurements, the inversion of wind fields from SAR observations has an inherent proble...

Using wind setdown and storm surge on Lake Erie to calibrate the air-sea drag coefficient.

Science.gov (United States)

Drews, Carl

2013-01-01

The air-sea drag coefficient controls the transfer of momentum from wind to water. In modeling storm surge, this coefficient is a crucial parameter for estimating the surge height. This study uses two strong wind events on Lake Erie to calibrate the drag coefficient using the Coupled Ocean Atmosphere Wave Sediment Transport (COAWST) modeling system and the the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS). Simulated waves are generated on the lake with Simulating WAves Nearshore (SWAN). Wind setdown provides the opportunity to eliminate wave setup as a contributing factor, since waves are minimal at the upwind shore. The study finds that model results significantly underestimate wind setdown and storm surge when a typical open-ocean formulation without waves is used for the drag coefficient. The contribution of waves to wind setdown and storm surge is 34.7%. Scattered lake ice also increases the effective drag coefficient by a factor of 1.1.

Boundary Layer Ducting of Low-elevation GNSS Ocean Reflected Signals

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Høeg, Per; von Benzon, Hans-Henrik; Durgonics, Tibor

for the data retrievals and the precision and the accuracy, are of interest for assessing the observational data content.Simulations of the low-elevation ocean reflected GNSS signal reveal a ducting of the signalwhen applying a model of the boundary layer. This effect is presented during varying conditions...... of the sea surface roughness, ocean wind and temperature, density and gradient of the water vapor profile in the boundary layer.The model for the sea surface roughness impedance, wind speed, and rms ocean wave-heightshow a stronger signal damping for a smoother ocean surfaces (sea state 0) compared...... to a rough sea (sea state 4). While the real part of the signal shows the reverse effect. At the same time the reflection zone enhances for rough sea states. Simulations, including a standard atmosphere and a boundary layer, give a significant ducting of the received signal, leading to a much larger...

Observation of high-resolution wind fields and offshore wind turbine wakes using TerraSAR-X imagery

Science.gov (United States)

Gies, Tobias; Jacobsen, Sven; Lehner, Susanne; Pleskachevsky, Andrey

2014-05-01

1. Introduction Numerous large-scale offshore wind farms have been built in European waters and play an important role in providing renewable energy. Therefore, knowledge of behavior of wakes, induced by large wind turbines and their impact on wind power output is important. The spatial variation of offshore wind turbine wake is very complex, depending on wind speed, wind direction, ambient atmospheric turbulence and atmospheric stability. In this study we demonstrate the application of X-band TerraSAR-X (TS-X) data with high spatial resolution for studies on wind turbine wakes in the near and far field of the offshore wind farm Alpha Ventus, located in the North Sea. Two cases which different weather conditions and different wake pattern as observed in the TS-X image are presented. 2. Methods The space-borne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is a unique sensor that provides two-dimensional information on the ocean surface. Due to their high resolution, daylight and weather independency and global coverage, SARs are particularly suitable for many ocean and coastal applications. SAR images reveal wind variations on small scales and thus represent a valuable means in detailed wind-field analysis. The general principle of imaging turbine wakes is that the reduced wind speed downstream of offshore wind farms modulates the sea surface roughness, which in turn changes the Normalized Radar Cross Section (NRCS, denoted by σ0) in the SAR image and makes the wake visible. In this study we present two cases at the offshore wind farm Alpha Ventus to investigate turbine-induced wakes and the retrieved sea surface wind field. Using the wind streaks, visible in the TS-X image and the shadow behind the offshore wind farm, induced by turbine wake, the sea surface wind direction is derived and subsequently the sea surface wind speed is calculated using the latest generation of wind field algorithm XMOD2. 3. Case study alpha ventus Alpha Ventus is located approximately 45 km from the

Effects of Wind on Virtual Plants in Animation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tina L. M. Derzaph

2013-01-01

Full Text Available This paper presents the Growth-Flow method for animating the effect of wind on the motion and growth of virtual plant branches and leaves. The method incorporates changes to the growth rate when a plant is exposed to winds with speeds higher than a threshold. In particular, growth rate is reduced in branch elongation, increased in the branch radius, reduced in leaf length, and increased in leaf thickness. In addition, when a plant is exposed to wind for long time periods, the branch growth angle is changed to align more closely with the wind vector. The Growth-Flow method incorporates all these effects on growth and motion due to wind in one algorithm.

Anomalous Arctic surface wind patterns and their impacts on September sea ice minima and trend

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bingyi Wu

2012-05-01

Full Text Available We used monthly mean surface wind data from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction/National Centers for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR reanalysis dataset during the period 1979–2010 to describe the first two patterns of Arctic surface wind variability by means of the complex vector empirical orthogonal function (CVEOF analysis. The first two patterns respectively account for 31 and 16% of its total anomalous kinetic energy. The leading pattern consists of the two subpatterns: the northern Laptev Sea (NLS pattern and the Arctic dipole (AD pattern. The second pattern contains the northern Kara Sea (NKS pattern and the central Arctic (CA pattern. Over the past two decades, the combined dynamical forcing of the first two patterns has contributed to Arctic September sea ice extent (SIE minima and its declining trend. September SIE minima are mainly associated with the negative phase of the AD pattern and the positive phase of the CA pattern during the summer (July to September season, and both phases coherently show an anomalous anticyclone over the Arctic Ocean. Wind patterns affect September SIE through their frequency and intensity. The negative trend in September SIE over the past two decades is associated with increased frequency and enhanced intensity of the CA pattern during the melting season from April to September. Thus, it cannot be simply attributed to the AD anomaly characterised by the second empirical orthogonal function mode of sea level pressure north of 70°N. The CA pattern exhibited interdecadal variability in the late 1990s, and an anomalous cyclone prevailed before 1997 and was then replaced by an anomalous anticyclone over the Arctic Ocean that is consistent with the rapid decline trend in September SIE. This paper provides an alternative way to identify the dominant patterns of climate variability and investigate their associated Arctic sea ice variability from a dynamical perspective. Indeed, this study

Wind power electric systems modeling, simulation and control

CERN Document Server

Rekioua, Djamila

2014-01-01

The book helps readers understand key concepts in standalone and grid connected wind energy systems and features analysis into the modeling and optimization of commonly used configurations through the implementation of different control strategies.Utilizing several electrical machinery control approaches, such as vector control and direct torque control 'Wind Power Electric Systems' equips readers with the means to understand, assess and develop their own wind energy systems and to evaluate the performance of such systems.Mathematical models are provided for each system and a corresponding MAT

A statistical-dynamical scheme for reconstructing ocean forcing in the Atlantic. Part I: weather regimes as predictors for ocean surface variables

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cassou, Christophe; Minvielle, Marie; Terray, Laurent [CERFACS/CNRS, Climate Modelling and Global Change Team, Toulouse (France); Perigaud, Claire [JPL-NASA, Ocean Science Element, Pasadena, CA (United States)

2011-01-15

The links between the observed variability of the surface ocean variables estimated from reanalysis and the overlying atmosphere decomposed in classes of large-scale atmospheric circulation via clustering are investigated over the Atlantic from 1958 to 2002. Daily 500 hPa geopotential height and 1,000 hPa wind anomaly maps are classified following a weather-typing approach to describe the North Atlantic and tropical Atlantic atmospheric dynamics, respectively. The algorithm yields patterns that correspond in the extratropics to the well-known North Atlantic-Europe weather regimes (NAE-WR) accounting for the barotropic dynamics, and in the tropics to wind classes (T-WC) representing the alteration of the trades. 10-m wind and 2-m temperature (T2) anomaly composites derived from regime/wind class occurrence are indicative of strong relationships between daily large-scale atmospheric circulation and ocean surface over the entire Atlantic basin. High temporal correlation values are obtained basin-wide at low frequency between the observed fields and their reconstruction by multiple linear regressions with the frequencies of occurrence of both NAE-WR and T-WC used as sole predictors. Additional multiple linear regressions also emphasize the importance of accounting for the strength of the daily anomalous atmospheric circulation estimated by the combined distances to all regimes centroids in order to reproduce the daily to interannual variability of the Atlantic ocean. We show that for most of the North Atlantic basin the occurrence of NAE-WR generally sets the sign of the ocean surface anomaly for a given day, and that the inter-regime distances are valuable predictors for the magnitude of that anomaly. Finally, we provide evidence that a large fraction of the low-frequency trends in the Atlantic observed at the surface over the last 50 years can be traced back, except for T2, to changes in occurrence of tropical and extratropical weather classes. All together, our

The ocean-atmosphere response to wind-induced thermocline changes in the tropical South Western Indian Ocean

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Manola, Iris; Selten, F. M.; De Ruijter, W. P M; Hazeleger, W.

2014-01-01

In the Indian Ocean basin the sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are most sensitive to changes in the oceanic depth of the thermocline in the region of the Seychelles Dome. Observational studies have suggested that the strong SST variations in this region influence the atmospheric evolution around the

DOD Offshore Wind Mission Compatibility Assessments

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — This data set represents the results of analyses conducted by the Department of Defense to assess the compatibility of offshore wind development with military assets...

A bistatic sodar for precision wind profiling in complex terrain

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bradley, Stuart; Hünerbein, Sabine Von; Mikkelsen, Torben

2012-01-01

A new ground-based wind profiling technology-a scanned bistatic sodar-is described. The motivation for this design is to obtain a "mastlike"wind vector profile in a single atmospheric column extending from the ground to heights of more than 200 m. The need for this columnar profiling arises from ...

Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands: an ocean testbed for ocean energy converters

Science.gov (United States)

González, Javier; Hernández-Brito, Joaquín.; Llinás, Octavio

2010-05-01

The Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands (PLOCAN) is a Governmental Consortium aimed to build and operate an off-shore infrastructure to facilitate the deep sea research and speed up the technology associated. This Consortium is overseen by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and the Canarian Agency for Research and Innovation. The infrastructure consists of an oceanic platform located in an area with depths between 50-100 meters, close to the continental slope and four kilometers off the coast of Gran Canaria, in the archipelago of the Canary Islands. The process of construction will start during the first months of 2010 and is expected to be finished in mid-year 2011. PLOCAN serves five strategic lines: an integral observatory able to explore from the deep ocean to the atmosphere, an ocean technology testbed, a base for underwater vehicles, an innovation platform and a highly specialized training centre. Ocean energy is a suitable source to contribute the limited mix-energy conformed in the archipelago of the Canary Islands with a total population around 2 million people unequally distributed in seven islands. Islands of Gran Canaria and Tenerife support the 80% of the total population with 800.000 people each. PLOCAN will contribute to develop the ocean energy sector establishing a marine testbed allowing prototypes testing at sea under a meticulous monitoring network provided by the integral observatory, generating valuable information to developers. Reducing costs throughout an integral project management is an essential objective to be reach, providing services such as transportation, customs and administrative permits. Ocean surface for testing activities is around 8 km2 with a depth going from 50 to 100 meters, 4km off the coast. Selected areas for testing have off-shore wind power conditions around 500-600 W/m2 and wave power conditions around 6 kW/m in the East coast and 10 kW/m in the North coast. Marine currents in the Canary Islands are

Deterministic chaos at the ocean surface: applications and interpretations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. J. Palmer

1998-01-01

Full Text Available Ocean surface, grazing-angle radar backscatter data from two separate experiments, one of which provided coincident time series of measured surface winds, were found to exhibit signatures of deterministic chaos. Evidence is presented that the lowest dimensional underlying dynamical system responsible for the radar backscatter chaos is that which governs the surface wind turbulence. Block-averaging time was found to be an important parameter for determining the degree of determinism in the data as measured by the correlation dimension, and by the performance of an artificial neural network in retrieving wind and stress from the radar returns, and in radar detection of an ocean internal wave. The correlation dimensions are lowered and the performance of the deterministic retrieval and detection algorithms are improved by averaging out the higher dimensional surface wave variability in the radar returns.

BOREAS AFM-06 Mean Wind Profile Data

Science.gov (United States)

Wilczak, James; Hall, Forrest G. (Editor); Newcomer, Jeffrey A. (Editor); Smith, David E. (Technical Monitor)

2000-01-01

The Boreal Ecosystem-Atmosphere Study (BOREAS) Airborne Fluxes and Meteorology (AFM)-6 team from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Environment Technology Laboratory (NOAA/ETL) operated a 915-MHz wind/Radio Acoustic Sounding System (RASS) profiler system in the Southern Study Area (SSA) near the Old Jack Pine (OJP) tower from 21 May 1994 to 20 Sep 1994. The data set provides wind profiles at 38 heights, containing the variables of wind speed; wind direction; and the u-, v-, and w-components of the total wind. The data are stored in tabular ASCII files. The mean wind profile data are available from the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC). The data files are available on a CD-ROM (see document number 20010000884).

Sharing Data in the Global Ocean Observing System (Invited)

Science.gov (United States)

Lindstrom, E. J.; McCurdy, A.; Young, J.; Fischer, A. S.

2010-12-01

We examine the evolution of data sharing in the field of physical oceanography to highlight the challenges now before us. Synoptic global observation of the ocean from space and in situ platforms has significantly matured over the last two decades. In the early 1990’s the community data sharing challenges facing the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) largely focused on the behavior of individual scientists. Satellite data sharing depended on the policy of individual agencies. Global data sets were delivered with considerable delay and with enormous personal sacrifice. In the 2000’s the requirements for global data sets and sustained observations from the likes of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change have led to data sharing and cooperation at a grander level. It is more effective and certainly more efficient. The Joint WMO/IOC Technical Commission on Oceanography and Marine Meteorology (JCOMM) provided the means to organize many aspects of data collection and data dissemination globally, for the common good. In response the Committee on Earth Observing Satellites organized Virtual Constellations to enable the assembly and sharing of like kinds of satellite data (e.g., sea surface topography, ocean vector winds, and ocean color). Individuals in physical oceanography have largely adapted to the new rigors of sharing data for the common good, and as a result of this revolution new science has been enabled. Primary obstacles to sharing have shifted from the individual level to the national level. As we enter into the 2010’s the demands for ocean data continue to evolve with an expanded requirement for more real-time reporting and broader disciplinary coverage, to answer key scientific and societal questions. We are also seeing the development of more numerous national contributions to the global observing system. The drivers for the establishment of global ocean observing systems are expanding beyond climate to include biological and

Modeling, analysis, control and design application guidelines of Doubly Fed Induction Generator (DFIG) for wind power applications

Science.gov (United States)

Masaud, Tarek

Double Fed Induction Generators (DFIG) has been widely used for the past two decades in large wind farms. However, there are many open-ended problems yet to be solved before they can be implemented in some specific applications. This dissertation deals with the general analysis, modeling, control and applications of the DFIG for large wind farm applications. A detailed "d-q" model of DFIG along with other applications is simulated using the MATLAB/Simulink platform. The simulation results have been discussed in detail in both sub-synchronous and super-synchronous mode of operation. An improved vector control strategy based on the rotor flux oriented vector control has been proposed to control the active power output of the DFIG. The new vector control strategy is compared with the stator flux oriented vector control which is commonly used. It is observed that the new improved vector control method provides a better active power tracking accuracy compare with the stator flux oriented vector control. The behavior of the DFIG -based wind farm under the various grid disturbances is also studied in this dissertation. The implementation of the Flexible AC Transmission System devices (FACTS) to overcome the voltage stability issue for such applications is investigated. The study includes the implementation of both a static synchronous compensator (STATCOM), and the static VAR compensator (SVC) as dynamic reactive power compensators at the point of common coupling to support DFIG-based wind farm during disturbances. Integrating FACTS protect the grid connected DFIG-based wind farm from going offline during and after the disturbances. It is found that the both devices improve the transient performance and therefore helps the wind turbine generator system to remain in service during grid faults. A comparison between the performance of the two devices in terms of the amount of reactive power injected, time response and the application cost has been discussed in this

International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set (ICOADS) R3.0 netCDF version

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — This collection contains observations of global ocean meteorological and oceanographic variables, such as sea surface and air temperatures, wind, pressure, humidity,...

Basic study for tsunami detection with DBF ocean radar

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sakai, Shin'ichi; Matsuyama, Masafumi; Okuda, Kouzou; Uehara, Fumihiro

2015-01-01

To develop early tsunami warning system utilizing ocean radars, the evaluation of the variety of measuring coverage and data accuracy is indispensable in real oceans. The field observation was carried out at 5 minutes interval with two digital beam forming ocean radars with VHF band from 2012 to 2014 in the sea of Enshu. The high data acquisition areas are found in the extent of 17 km off the coast on a hill site and of 13 km on a low ground site. The measured current by the ocean radar were well correlated with that by the current-meter in the depth of 2 m near the coast with the correlation coefficient of ∼0.6. It is inferred that the main factor of difference in both data sets was due to the presence of wind-driven current through the multi-regression analysis with both current data and wind data. In addition, the order of the temporal current deviations as to the representative time-scale of one hour is about 5 cm/s under the ordinary sea conditions, which suggest that ocean radars could sufficiently detect the current deviation due to grant tsunami. (author)

Teleconnections of the tropical Atlantic to the tropical Indian and Pacific Oceans. A review of recent findings

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wang Chunzai [NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Lab., Miami, FL (United States); Kucharski, Fred; Barimalala, Rondrotiana [The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Earth System Physics, Section Trieste (Italy); Bracco, Annalisa [School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Georgia, Inst. of Tech., Atlanta, GA (United States)

2009-08-15

Recent studies found that tropical Atlantic variability may affect the climate in both the tropical Pacific and Indian Ocean basins, possibly modulating the Indian summer monsoon and Pacific ENSO events. A warm tropical Atlantic Ocean forces a Gill-Matsuno-type quadrupole response with a low-level anticyclone located over India that weakens the Indian monsoon circulation, and vice versa for a cold tropical Atlantic Ocean. The tropical Atlantic Ocean can also induce changes in the Indian Ocean sea surface temperatures (SSTs). especially along the coast of Africa and in the western side of the Indian basin. Additionally, it can influence the tropical Pacific Ocean via an atmospheric teleconnection that is associated with the Atlantic Walker circulation. Although the Pacific El Nino does not contemporaneously correlate with the Atlantic Nino, anomalous warming or cooling of the two equatorial oceans can form an inter-basin SST gradient that induces surface zonal wind anomalies over equatorial South America and other regions in both ocean basins. The zonal wind anomalies act as a bridge linking the two ocean basins, and in turn reinforce the inter-basin SST gradient through the atmospheric Walker circulation and oceanic processes. Thus, a positive feedback seems to exist for climate variability of the tropical Pacific-Atlantic Oceans and atmospheric system, in which the inter-basin SST gradient is coupled to the overlying atmospheric wind. (orig.)

Offshore Wind Resource Estimation in Mediterranean Area Using SAR Images

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Calaudi, Rosamaria; Arena, Felice; Badger, Merete

Satellite observations of the ocean surface from Synthetic Aperture Radars (SAR) provide information about the spatial wind variability over large areas. This is of special interest in the Mediterranean, where spatial wind information is only provided by sparse buoys, often with long periods of m...

Gap winds and their effects on regional oceanography Part II: Kodiak Island, Alaska

Science.gov (United States)

Ladd, Carol; Cheng, Wei; Salo, Sigrid

2016-10-01

Frequent gap winds, defined here as offshore-directed flow channeled through mountain gaps, have been observed near Kodiak Island in the Gulf of Alaska (GOA). Gap winds from the Iliamna Lake gap were investigated using QuikSCAT wind data. The influence of these wind events on the regional ocean was examined using satellite and in situ data combined with Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) model runs. Gap winds influence the entire shelf width (> 200 km) northeast of Kodiak Island and extend an additional 150 km off-shelf. Due to strong gradients in the along-shelf direction, they can result in vertical velocities in the ocean of over 20 m d-1 due to Ekman pumping. The wind events also disrupt flow of the Alaska Coastal Current (ACC), resulting in decreased flow down Shelikof Strait and increased velocities on the outer shelf. This disruption of the ACC has implications for freshwater transport into the Bering Sea. The oceanographic response to gap winds may influence the survival of larval fishes as Arrowtooth Flounder recruitment is negatively correlated with the interannual frequency of gap-wind events, and Pacific Cod recruitment is positively correlated. The frequency of offshore directed winds exhibits a strong seasonal cycle averaging 7 days per month during winter and 2 days per month during summer. Interannual variability is correlated with the Pacific North America Index and shows a linear trend, increasing by 1.35 days per year. An accompanying paper discusses part I of our study (Ladd and Cheng, 2016) focusing on gap-wind events flowing out of Cross Sound in the eastern GOA.

High-Resolution Wind Measurements for Offshore Wind Energy Development

Science.gov (United States)

Nghiem, Son V.; Neumann, Gregory

2011-01-01

A mathematical transform, called the Rosette Transform, together with a new method, called the Dense Sampling Method, have been developed. The Rosette Transform is invented to apply to both the mean part and the fluctuating part of a targeted radar signature using the Dense Sampling Method to construct the data in a high-resolution grid at 1-km posting for wind measurements over water surfaces such as oceans or lakes.

Short-term wind power combined forecasting based on error forecast correction

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Liang, Zhengtang; Liang, Jun; Wang, Chengfu; Dong, Xiaoming; Miao, Xiaofeng

2016-01-01

Highlights: • The correlation relationships of short-term wind power forecast errors are studied. • The correlation analysis method of the multi-step forecast errors is proposed. • A strategy selecting the input variables for the error forecast models is proposed. • Several novel combined models based on error forecast correction are proposed. • The combined models have improved the short-term wind power forecasting accuracy. - Abstract: With the increasing contribution of wind power to electric power grids, accurate forecasting of short-term wind power has become particularly valuable for wind farm operators, utility operators and customers. The aim of this study is to investigate the interdependence structure of errors in short-term wind power forecasting that is crucial for building error forecast models with regression learning algorithms to correct predictions and improve final forecasting accuracy. In this paper, several novel short-term wind power combined forecasting models based on error forecast correction are proposed in the one-step ahead, continuous and discontinuous multi-step ahead forecasting modes. First, the correlation relationships of forecast errors of the autoregressive model, the persistence method and the support vector machine model in various forecasting modes have been investigated to determine whether the error forecast models can be established by regression learning algorithms. Second, according to the results of the correlation analysis, the range of input variables is defined and an efficient strategy for selecting the input variables for the error forecast models is proposed. Finally, several combined forecasting models are proposed, in which the error forecast models are based on support vector machine/extreme learning machine, and correct the short-term wind power forecast values. The data collected from a wind farm in Hebei Province, China, are selected as a case study to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed

Power Maximization Control of Variable Speed Wind Generation System Using Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generator

Science.gov (United States)

Morimoto, Shigeo; Nakamura, Tomohiko; Takeda, Yoji

This paper proposes the sensorless output power maximization control of the wind generation system. A permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) is used as a variable speed generator in the proposed system. The generator torque is suitably controlled according to the generator speed and thus the power from a wind turbine settles down on the maximum power point by the proposed MPPT control method, where the information of wind velocity is not required. Moreover, the maximum available generated power is obtained by the optimum current vector control. The current vector of PMSG is optimally controlled according to the generator speed and the required torque in order to minimize the losses of PMSG considering the voltage and current constraints. The proposed wind power generation system can be achieved without mechanical sensors such as a wind velocity detector and a position sensor. Several experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed control method.

Assimilation of GMS-5 satellite winds using nudging method with MM5

Science.gov (United States)

Gao, Shanhong; Wu, Zengmao; Yang, Bo

2006-09-01

With the aid of Meteorological Information Composite and Processing System (MICAPS), satellite wind vectors derived from the Geostationary Meteorological Statellite-5 (GMS-5) and retrieved by National Satellite Meteorology Center of China (NSMC) can be obtained. Based on the nudging method built in the fifth-generation Mesoscale Model (MM5) of Pennsylvania State University and National Center for Atmospheric Research, a data preprocessor is developed to convert these satellite wind vectors to those with specified format required in MM5. To examine the data preprocessor and evaluate the impact of satellite winds from GMS-5 on MM5 simulations, a series of numerical experimental forecasts consisting of four typhoon cases in 2002 are designed and implemented. The results show that the preprocessor can process satellite winds smoothly and MM5 model runs successfully with a little extra computational load during ingesting these winds, and that assimilation of satellite winds by MM5 nudging method can obviously improve typhoon track forecast but contributes a little to typhoon intensity forecast. The impact of the satellite winds depends heavily upon whether the typhoon bogussing scheme in MM5 was turned on or not. The data preprocessor developed in this paper not only can treat GMS-5 satellite winds but also has capability with little modification to process derived winds from other geostationary satellites.

The roles of vertical mixing, solar radiation, and wind stress in a model simulation of the sea surface temperature seasonal cycle in the tropical Pacfic Ocean

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Dake; Busalacchi, Antonio J.; Rothstein, Lewis M.

1994-01-01

The climatological seasonal cycle of sea surface temperature (SST) in the tropical Pacific is simulated using a newly developed upper ocean model. The roles of vertical mixing, solar radiation, and wind stress are investigated in a hierarchy of numerical experiments with various combinations of vertical mixing algorithms and surface-forcing products. It is found that the large SST annual cycle in the eastern equatorial Pacific is, to a large extent, controlled by the annually varying mixed layer depth which, in turn, is mainly determined by the competing effects of solar radiation and wind forcing. With the application of our hybrid vertical mixing scheme the model-simulated SST annual cycle is much improved in both amplitude and phase as compared to the case of a constant mixed layer depth. Beside the strong effects on vertical mixing, solar radiation is the primary heating term in the surface layer heat budget, and wind forcing influences SST by driving oceanic advective processes that redistribute heat in the upper ocean. For example, the SST seasonal cycle in the western Pacific basically follows the semiannual variation of solar heating, and the cycle in the central equatorial region is significantly affected by the zonal advective heat flux associated with the seasonally reversing South Equatorial Current. It has been shown in our experiments that the amount of heat flux modification needed to eliminate the annual mean SST errors in the model is, on average, no larger than the annual mean uncertainties among the various surface flux products used in this study. Whereas a bias correction is needed to account for remaining uncertainties in the annual mean heat flux, this study demonstrates that with proper treatment of mixed layer physics and realistic forcing functions the seasonal variability of SST is capable of being simulated successfully in response to external forcing without relying on a relaxation or damping formulation for the dominant surface heat

Wind Patterns of Coastal Tanzania: Their Variability and Trends ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Generally, the wind speeds were significantly correlated with the El-Niño Southern Oscillation and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, while at Mtwara the winds were also correlated with the Indian Ocean Dipole. These correlations were higher during the SE Monsoon than during the NE Monsoon. Trends in the monthly mean ...

Arabian Sea upwelling - A comparison between coastal and open ocean regions

Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)

Muraleedharan, P.M.; PrasannaKumar, S.

The response of the eastern Arabian Sea to prevailing winds during an upwelling event, in the peak of southwest monsoon, was studied at both coastal and open ocean environment based on the data collected as a part of the Indian Joint Global Ocean...

Light reflection from a rough liquid surface including wind-wave effects in a scattering atmosphere

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Salinas, Santo V.; Liew, S.C.

2007-01-01

Visible and near-IR images of the ocean surface, taken from remote satellites, often contain important information of near-surface or sub-surface processes, which occur on, or over the ocean. Remote measurements of near surface winds, sea surface temperature and salinity, ocean color and underwater bathymetry, all, one way or another, depend on how well we understand sea surface roughness. However, in order to extract useful information from our remote measurements, we need to construct accurate models of the transfer of solar radiation inside the atmosphere as well as, its reflection from the sea surface. To approach this problem, we numerically solve the radiative transfer equation (RTE) by implementing a model for the atmosphere-ocean system. A one-dimensional atmospheric radiation model is solved via the widely known doubling and adding method and the ocean body is treated as a boundary condition to the problem. The ocean surface is modeled as a rough liquid surface which includes wind interaction and wave states, such as wave age. The model can have possible applications to the retrieval of wind and wave states, such as wave age, near a Sun glint region

Applicability of Synthetic Aperture Radar Wind Retrievals on Offshore Wind Resources Assessment in Hangzhou Bay, China

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rui Chang

2014-05-01

Full Text Available In view of the high cost and sparse spatial resolution of offshore meteorological observations, ocean winds retrieved from satellites are valuable in offshore wind resource assessment as a supplement to in situ measurements. This study examines satellite synthetic aperture radar (SAR images from ENVISAT advanced SAR (ASAR for mapping wind resources with high spatial resolution. Around 181 collected pairs of wind data from SAR wind maps and from 13 meteorological stations in Hangzhou Bay are compared. The statistical results comparing in situ wind speed and SAR-based wind speed show a standard deviation (SD of 1.99 m/s and correlation coefficient of R = 0.67. The model wind directions, which are used as input for the SAR wind speed retrieval, show a high correlation coefficient (R = 0.89 but a large standard deviation (SD = 42.3° compared to in situ observations. The Weibull probability density functions are compared at one meteorological station. The SAR-based results appear not to estimate the mean wind speed, Weibull scale and shape parameters and wind power density from the full in situ data set so well due to the lower number of satellite samples. Distributions calculated from the concurrent 81 SAR and in situ samples agree well.

Regional impacts of ocean color on tropical Pacific variability

Science.gov (United States)

Anderson, W.; Gnanadesikan, A.; Wittenberg, A.

2009-08-01

The role of the penetration length scale of shortwave radiation into the surface ocean and its impact on tropical Pacific variability is investigated with a fully coupled ocean, atmosphere, land and ice model. Previous work has shown that removal of all ocean color results in a system that tends strongly towards an El Niño state. Results from a suite of surface chlorophyll perturbation experiments show that the mean state and variability of the tropical Pacific is highly sensitive to the concentration and distribution of ocean chlorophyll. Setting the near-oligotrophic regions to contain optically pure water warms the mean state and suppresses variability in the western tropical Pacific. Doing the same above the shadow zones of the tropical Pacific also warms the mean state but enhances the variability. It is shown that increasing penetration can both deepen the pycnocline (which tends to damp El Niño) while shifting the mean circulation so that the wind response to temperature changes is altered. Depending on what region is involved this change in the wind stress can either strengthen or weaken ENSO variability.

A New Fault Diagnosis Algorithm for PMSG Wind Turbine Power Converters under Variable Wind Speed Conditions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yingning Qiu

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Although Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generator (PMSG wind turbines (WTs mitigate gearbox impacts, they requires high reliability of generators and converters. Statistical analysis shows that the failure rate of direct-drive PMSG wind turbines’ generators and inverters are high. Intelligent fault diagnosis algorithms to detect inverters faults is a premise for the condition monitoring system aimed at improving wind turbines’ reliability and availability. The influences of random wind speed and diversified control strategies lead to challenges for developing intelligent fault diagnosis algorithms for converters. This paper studies open-circuit fault features of wind turbine converters in variable wind speed situations through systematic simulation and experiment. A new fault diagnosis algorithm named Wind Speed Based Normalized Current Trajectory is proposed and used to accurately detect and locate faulted IGBT in the circuit arms. It is compared to direct current monitoring and current vector trajectory pattern approaches. The results show that the proposed method has advantages in the accuracy of fault diagnosis and has superior anti-noise capability in variable wind speed situations. The impact of the control strategy is also identified. Experimental results demonstrate its applicability on practical WT condition monitoring system which is used to improve wind turbine reliability and reduce their maintenance cost.

Identifying and tracking plumes affected by an ocean breeze in support of emergency preparedness

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schwartz, P.E.

1989-01-01

To better support emergency preparedness, General Public Utilities (GPU) Nuclear has investigated the frequency of occurrence of the mesoscale ocean breeze at the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station (OCNGS). Through the analysis of the horizontal wind direction and temperature patterns, simple identification of the ocean breeze along with a plume tracking procedure has been developed and incorporated into the site's emergency plant to better safeguard the public with sophisticated protective action measures in case of a nonroutine release. The ocean breeze will frequently produce wind trajectory fields within the plant's emergency planning zone that are different from the normal gradient wind flow. This could greatly alter proper protective action measures since most utilities employ straight-line trajectory air dispersion models. Knowledge of the existence of the ocean breeze and the location of the ocean breeze front become important in the results generated from the straight-line Gaussian dose calculation methodology and in the further development of a more complex dose assessment model. This paper describes the verification and existence of the sea breeze phenomenon and the incorporation of its effects into the OCNGS emergency plan

Short-term wind power prediction based on LSSVM–GSA model

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yuan, Xiaohui; Chen, Chen; Yuan, Yanbin; Huang, Yuehua; Tan, Qingxiong

2015-01-01

Highlights: • A hybrid model is developed for short-term wind power prediction. • The model is based on LSSVM and gravitational search algorithm. • Gravitational search algorithm is used to optimize parameters of LSSVM. • Effect of different kernel function of LSSVM on wind power prediction is discussed. • Comparative studies show that prediction accuracy of wind power is improved. - Abstract: Wind power forecasting can improve the economical and technical integration of wind energy into the existing electricity grid. Due to its intermittency and randomness, it is hard to forecast wind power accurately. For the purpose of utilizing wind power to the utmost extent, it is very important to make an accurate prediction of the output power of a wind farm under the premise of guaranteeing the security and the stability of the operation of the power system. In this paper, a hybrid model (LSSVM–GSA) based on the least squares support vector machine (LSSVM) and gravitational search algorithm (GSA) is proposed to forecast the short-term wind power. As the kernel function and the related parameters of the LSSVM have a great influence on the performance of the prediction model, the paper establishes LSSVM model based on different kernel functions for short-term wind power prediction. And then an optimal kernel function is determined and the parameters of the LSSVM model are optimized by using GSA. Compared with the Back Propagation (BP) neural network and support vector machine (SVM) model, the simulation results show that the hybrid LSSVM–GSA model based on exponential radial basis kernel function and GSA has higher accuracy for short-term wind power prediction. Therefore, the proposed LSSVM–GSA is a better model for short-term wind power prediction

Winds observed in the Northern European seas with wind lidars, meteorological masts and satellite

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hasager, Charlotte Bay; Stein, D.; Peña, Alfredo

2013-01-01

Ocean winds have been observed in the Baltic, Irish and North Seas from a combination of groundbased lidars, tall offshore meteorological masts and satellites remote sensing in recent years. In the FP7 project NORSEWInD (2008-2012) the project partners joined forces to ensure collection of these ...

The atmosphere and ocean: A physical introduction

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wells, N.

1986-01-01

The book's contents are: The Earth within the solar system. Composition and physical properties of the ocean and atmosphere. Radiation, temperature and stability. Water in the atmosphere. Global budgets of heat, water and salt. Observations of winds and currents. The influence of the Earth's rotation on fluid motion. Waves and tides. Energy transfer in the ocean-atmosphere system. Climate variability and predictability. The atmosphere and ocean are two different environmental systems, yet both are interdependent, interacting and exchanging energy, heat and matter. This book attempts to bring the study of the atmosphere and ocean together. It is a descriptive account of physical properties, exploring their common bases, similarities, interactions and fundamental differences

Wave modelling for the North Indian Ocean using MSMR analysed winds

Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)

Vethamony, P.; Sudheesh, K.; Rupali, S.P.; Babu, M.T.; Jayakumar, S.; Saran, A; Basu, S.K.; Kumar, R.; Sarkar, A

prediction when NCMRWF winds blended with MSMR winds are utilised in the wave model. A comparison between buoy and TOPEX wave heights of May 2000 at 4 buoy locations provides a good match, showing the merit of using altimeter data, wherever it is difficult...

Coherence of river and ocean conditions along the US West Coast during storms

Science.gov (United States)

Kniskern, T.A.; Warrick, J.A.; Farnsworth, K.L.; Wheatcroft, R.A.; Goni, M.A.

2011-01-01

The majority of water and sediment discharge from the small, mountainous watersheds of the US West Coast occurs during and immediately following winter storms. The physical conditions (waves, currents, and winds) within and acting upon the proximal coastal ocean during these winter storms strongly influence dispersal patterns. We examined this river-ocean temporal coherence for four coastal river-shelf systems of the US West Coast (Umpqua, Eel, Salinas, and Santa Clara) to evaluate whether specific ocean conditions occur during floods that may influence coastal dispersal of sediment. Eleven years of corresponding river discharge, wind, and wave data were obtained for each river-shelf system from USGS and NOAA historical records, and each record was evaluated for seasonal and event-based patterns. Because near-bed shear stresses due to waves influence sediment resuspension and transport, we used spectral wave data to compute and evaluate wave-generated bottom-orbital velocities. The highest values of wave energy and discharge for all four systems were consistently observed between October 15 and March 15, and there were strong latitudinal patterns observed in these data with lower discharge and wave energies in the southernmost systems. During floods we observed patterns of river-ocean coherence that differed from the overall seasonal patterns. For example, downwelling winds generally prevailed during floods in the northern two systems (Umpqua and Eel), whereas winds in the southern systems (Salinas and Santa Clara) were generally downwelling before peak discharge and upwelling after peak discharge. Winds not associated with floods were generally upwelling on all four river-shelf systems. Although there are seasonal variations in river-ocean coherence, waves generally led floods in the three northern systems, while they lagged floods in the Santa Clara. Combined, these observations suggest that there are consistent river-ocean coherence patterns along the US West

NOAA JPSS Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Polar Winds from NDE

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — This dataset contains the Level 3 Polar Winds Northern and Southern Hemisphere datasets. The Level 3 Polar Winds data from VIIRS for the Arctic and Antarctic from 65...

Near-inertial waves and deep ocean mixing

Science.gov (United States)

Shrira, V. I.; Townsend, W. A.

2013-07-01

For the existing pattern of global oceanic circulation to exist, there should be sufficiently strong turbulent mixing in the abyssal ocean, the mechanisms of which are not well understood as yet. The review discusses a plausible mechanism of deep ocean mixing caused by near-inertial waves in the abyssal ocean. It is well known how winds in the atmosphere generate near-inertial waves in the upper ocean, which then propagate downwards losing their energy in the process; only a fraction of the energy at the surface reaches the abyssal ocean. An open question is whether and, if yes, how these weakened inertial motions could cause mixing in the deep. We review the progress in the mathematical description of a mechanism that results in an intense breaking of near-inertial waves near the bottom of the ocean and thus enhances the mixing. We give an overview of the present state of understanding of the problem covering both the published and the unpublished results; we also outline the key open questions. For typical ocean stratification, the account of the horizontal component of the Earth's rotation leads to the existence of near-bottom wide waveguides for near-inertial waves. Due to the β-effect these waveguides are narrowing in the poleward direction. Near-inertial waves propagating poleward get trapped in the waveguides; we describe how in the process these waves are focusing more and more in the vertical direction, while simultaneously their group velocity tends to zero and wave-induced vertical shear significantly increases. This causes the development of shear instability, which is interpreted as wave breaking. Remarkably, this mechanism of local intensification of turbulent mixing in the abyssal ocean can be adequately described within the framework of linear theory. The qualitative picture is similar to wind wave breaking on a beach: the abyssal ocean always acts as a surf zone for near-inertial waves.

Near-inertial waves and deep ocean mixing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shrira, V I; Townsend, W A

2013-01-01

For the existing pattern of global oceanic circulation to exist, there should be sufficiently strong turbulent mixing in the abyssal ocean, the mechanisms of which are not well understood as yet. The review discusses a plausible mechanism of deep ocean mixing caused by near-inertial waves in the abyssal ocean. It is well known how winds in the atmosphere generate near-inertial waves in the upper ocean, which then propagate downwards losing their energy in the process; only a fraction of the energy at the surface reaches the abyssal ocean. An open question is whether and, if yes, how these weakened inertial motions could cause mixing in the deep. We review the progress in the mathematical description of a mechanism that results in an intense breaking of near-inertial waves near the bottom of the ocean and thus enhances the mixing. We give an overview of the present state of understanding of the problem covering both the published and the unpublished results; we also outline the key open questions. For typical ocean stratification, the account of the horizontal component of the Earth's rotation leads to the existence of near-bottom wide waveguides for near-inertial waves. Due to the β-effect these waveguides are narrowing in the poleward direction. Near-inertial waves propagating poleward get trapped in the waveguides; we describe how in the process these waves are focusing more and more in the vertical direction, while simultaneously their group velocity tends to zero and wave-induced vertical shear significantly increases. This causes the development of shear instability, which is interpreted as wave breaking. Remarkably, this mechanism of local intensification of turbulent mixing in the abyssal ocean can be adequately described within the framework of linear theory. The qualitative picture is similar to wind wave breaking on a beach: the abyssal ocean always acts as a surf zone for near-inertial waves. (paper)

O?shore ?oating wind turbine and its dynamic problems?

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Renchuan ZHU; Guoping MIAO; Ju FAN; Hua LIU

2016-01-01

Green energy sources and ocean wind power are plentiful in deep sea. More and more o?shore wind power plants are constructed in the deep water over hundred meters below the surface. While o?shore ?oating wind turbine system is working, wind turbine, ?oating foundation, and mooring system a?ect each other with wind, waves, and currents acting on them. Various o?shore ?oating wind turbine systems and the encoun-tered environmental loads are brie?y reviewed and discussed. It is di?cult and crucial to comprehensively analyze the aerodynamic-hydrodynamic-service system-structure un-der the coupling e?ect of o?shore ?oating wind turbine system. The environmental ?ow ?eld, structure scale, and rational applications of theories and approaches should be well considered in advance.

Characterization of the spatial and temporal dynamics of the dengue vector population established in urban areas of Fernando de Noronha, a Brazilian oceanic island.

Science.gov (United States)

Regis, Lêda N; Acioli, Ridelane Veiga; Silveira, José Constantino; de Melo-Santos, Maria Alice Varjal; da Cunha, Mércia Cristiane Santana; Souza, Fátima; Batista, Carlos Alberto Vieira; Barbosa, Rosângela Maria Rodrigues; de Oliveira, Cláudia Maria Fontes; Ayres, Constância Flávia Junqueira; Monteiro, Antonio Miguel Vieira; Souza, Wayner Vieira

2014-09-01

Aedes aegypti has played a major role in the dramatic expansion of dengue worldwide. The failure of control programs in reducing the rhythm of global dengue expansion through vector control suggests the need for studies to support more appropriated control strategies. We report here the results of a longitudinal study on Ae. aegypti population dynamics through continuous egg sampling aiming to characterize the infestation of urban areas of a Brazilian oceanic island, Fernando de Noronha. The spatial and temporal distribution of the dengue vector population in urban areas of the island was described using a monitoring system (SMCP-Aedes) based on a 103-trap network for Aedes egg sampling, using GIS and spatial statistics analysis tools. Mean egg densities were estimated over a 29-month period starting in 2011 and producing monthly maps of mosquito abundance. The system detected continuous Ae. aegypti oviposition in most traps. The high global positive ovitrap index (POI=83.7% of 2815 events) indicated the frequent presence of blood-fed-egg laying females at every sampling station. Egg density (eggs/ovitrap/month) reached peak values of 297.3 (0 - 2020) in May and 295 (0 - 2140) in August 2012. The presence of a stable Ae. aegypti population established throughout the inhabited areas of the island was demonstrated. A strong association between egg abundance and rainfall with a 2-month lag was observed, which combined with a first-order autocorrelation observed in the series of egg counts can provide an important forecasting tool. This first description of the characteristics of the island infestation by the dengue vector provides baseline information to analyze relationships between the spatial distribution of the vector and dengue cases, and to the development of integrated vector control strategies. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

NOAA Climate Data Record (CDR) of Ocean Near Surface Atmospheric Properties, Version 2

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The NOAA Ocean Surface Bundle (OSB) Climate Data Record (CDR) consist of three parts: sea surface temperature; near-surface wind speed, air temperature, and specific...

Association between mean and interannual equatorial Indian Ocean subsurface temperature bias in a coupled model

Science.gov (United States)

Srinivas, G.; Chowdary, Jasti S.; Gnanaseelan, C.; Prasad, K. V. S. R.; Karmakar, Ananya; Parekh, Anant

2018-03-01

In the present study the association between mean and interannual subsurface temperature bias over the equatorial Indian Ocean (EIO) is investigated during boreal summer (June through September; JJAS) in the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Climate Forecast System (CFSv2) hindcast. Anomalously high subsurface warm bias (greater than 3 °C) over the eastern EIO (EEIO) region is noted in CFSv2 during summer, which is higher compared to other parts of the tropical Indian Ocean. Prominent eastward current bias in the upper 100 m over the EIO region induced by anomalous westerly winds is primarily responsible for subsurface temperature bias. The eastward currents transport warm water to the EEIO and is pushed down to subsurface due to downwelling. Thus biases in both horizontal and vertical currents over the EIO region support subsurface warm bias. The evolution of systematic subsurface warm bias in the model shows strong interannual variability. These maximum subsurface warming episodes over the EEIO are mainly associated with La Niña like forcing. Strong convergence of low level winds over the EEIO and Maritime continent enhanced the westerly wind bias over the EIO during maximum warming years. This low level convergence of wind is induced by the bias in the gradient in the mean sea level pressure with positive bias over western EIO and negative bias over EEIO and parts of western Pacific. Consequently, changes in the atmospheric circulation associated with La Niña like conditions affected the ocean dynamics by modulating the current bias thereby enhancing the subsurface warm bias over the EEIO. It is identified that EEIO subsurface warming is stronger when La Niña co-occurred with negative Indian Ocean Dipole events as compared to La Niña only years in the model. Ocean general circulation model (OGCM) experiments forced with CFSv2 winds clearly support our hypothesis that ocean dynamics influenced by westerly winds bias is primarily

A parabolic velocity-decomposition method for wind turbines

Science.gov (United States)

Mittal, Anshul; Briley, W. Roger; Sreenivas, Kidambi; Taylor, Lafayette K.

2017-02-01

An economical parabolized Navier-Stokes approximation for steady incompressible flow is combined with a compatible wind turbine model to simulate wind turbine flows, both upstream of the turbine and in downstream wake regions. The inviscid parabolizing approximation is based on a Helmholtz decomposition of the secondary velocity vector and physical order-of-magnitude estimates, rather than an axial pressure gradient approximation. The wind turbine is modeled by distributed source-term forces incorporating time-averaged aerodynamic forces generated by a blade-element momentum turbine model. A solution algorithm is given whose dependent variables are streamwise velocity, streamwise vorticity, and pressure, with secondary velocity determined by two-dimensional scalar and vector potentials. In addition to laminar and turbulent boundary-layer test cases, solutions for a streamwise vortex-convection test problem are assessed by mesh refinement and comparison with Navier-Stokes solutions using the same grid. Computed results for a single turbine and a three-turbine array are presented using the NREL offshore 5-MW baseline wind turbine. These are also compared with an unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes solution computed with full rotor resolution. On balance, the agreement in turbine wake predictions for these test cases is very encouraging given the substantial differences in physical modeling fidelity and computer resources required.

Land-atmosphere-ocean interactions in the southeastern Atlantic: interannual variability

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Xiaoming; Vizy, Edward K.; Cook, Kerry H.

2018-02-01

Land-atmosphere-ocean interactions in the southeastern South Atlantic and their connections to interannual variability are examined using a regional climate model coupled with an intermediate-level ocean model. In austral summer, zonal displacements of the South Atlantic subtropical high (SASH) can induce variations of mixed-layer currents in the Benguela upwelling region through surface wind stress curl anomalies near the Namibian coast, and an eastward shifted SASH is related to the first Pacific-South American mode. When the SASH is meridionally displaced, mixed layer vertically-integrated Ekman transport anomalies are mainly a response to the change of alongshore surface wind stress. The latitudinal shift of the SASH tends to dampen the anomalous alongshore wind by modulating the land-sea thermal contrast, while opposed by oceanic diffusion. Although the position of the SASH is closely linked to the phase of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the southern annular mode (SAM) in austral summer, an overall relationship between Benguela upwelling strength and ENSO or SAM is absent. During austral winter, variations of the mixed layer Ekman transport in the Benguela upwelling region are connected to the strength of the SASH through its impact on both coastal wind stress curl and alongshore surface wind stress. Compared with austral summer, low-level cloud cover change plays a more important role. Although wintertime sea surface temperature fluctuations in the equatorial Atlantic are strong and may act to influence variability over the northern Benguela area, the surface heat budget analysis suggests that local air-sea interactions dominate.

Carbon isotope evidence for the latitudinal distribution and wind speed dependence of the air-sea gas transfer velocity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Krakauer, Nir Y.

2006-01-01

The air-sea gas transfer velocity is an important determinant of the exchange of gases, including CO 2 , between the atmosphere and ocean, but the magnitude of the transfer velocity and what factors control it remains poorly known. Here, we use oceanic and atmospheric observations of 14 C and 13 C to constrain the global mean gas transfer velocity as well as the exponent of its wind speed dependence, utilizing the distinct signatures left by the air-sea exchange of 14 CO 2 and 13 CO 2 . While the atmosphere and ocean inventories of 14 CO 2 and 13 CO 2 constrain the mean gas transfer velocity, the latitudinal pattern in the atmospheric and oceanic 14 C and 13 C distributions contain information about the wind speed dependence. We computed the uptake of bomb 14 C by the ocean for different transfer velocity patterns using pulse response functions from an ocean general circulation model, and evaluated the match between the predicted bomb 14 C concentrations and observationally based estimates for the 1970s-1990s. Using a wind speed climatology based on satellite measurements, we solved either for the best-fit global relationship between gas exchange and mean wind speed or for the mean gas transfer velocity over each of 11 ocean regions. We also compared the predicted consequences of different gas exchange relationships on the rate of change and interhemisphere gradient of 14 C in atmospheric CO 2 with tree-ring and atmospheric measurements. Our results suggest that globally, the dependence of the air-sea gas transfer velocity on wind speed is close to linear, with an exponent of 0.5 ± 0.4, and that the global mean gas transfer velocity at a Schmidt number of 660 is 20 ± 3 cm/hr, similar to the results of previous analyses. We find that the air-sea flux of 13 C estimated from atmosphere and ocean observations also suggests a lower than quadratic dependence of gas exchange on wind speed

Characterization of wind velocities in the upstream induction zone of a wind turbine using scanning continuous-wave lidars

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Simley, Eric; Angelou, Nikolas; Mikkelsen, Torben Krogh

2016-01-01

As a wind turbine generates power, induced velocities, lower than the freestream velocity, will be present upstream of the turbine due to perturbation of the flow by the rotor. In this study, the upstream induction zone of a 225kW horizontal axis Vestas V27 wind turbine located at the Danish...... Technical University’s Risø campus is investigated using a scanning Light Detection and Ranging (lidar) system. Three short-range continuous-wave “WindScanner” lidars are positioned in the field around the V27 turbine allowing detection of all three components of the wind velocity vectors within...... the induction zone. The time-averaged mean wind speeds at different locations in the upstream induction zone are measured by scanning a horizontal plane at hub height and a vertical plane centered at the middle of the rotor extending roughly 1.5 rotor diameters (D) upstream of the rotor. Turbulence statistics...

NOAA NDBC SOS, 2006-present, winds

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The NOAA NDBC SOS server is part of the IOOS DIF SOS Project. The stations in this dataset have winds data. Because of the nature of SOS requests, requests for data...

Retrieval of vertical wind profiles during monsoon from satellite ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

large number of radiosonde observations of wind profiles over the Indian Ocean during the monsoon months. It has been found that the first ... include several sources of both systematic and random errors. Among them cloud top height .... highly correlated with the pseudo-winds at levels between 850mb and 600mb (r ј 0:8) ...

GHRSST Level 3U Global Subskin Sea Surface Temperature from the WindSat Polarimetric Radiometer on the Coriolis satellite (GDS version 2)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The WindSat Polarimetric Radiometer, launched on January 6, 2003 aboard the Department of Defense Coriolis satellite, was designed to measure the ocean surface wind...

Lyapunov, singular and bred vectors in a multi-scale system: an empirical exploration of vectors related to instabilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Norwood, Adrienne; Kalnay, Eugenia; Ide, Kayo; Yang, Shu-Chih; Wolfe, Christopher

2013-01-01

We compute and compare the three types of vectors frequently used to explore the instability properties of dynamical models, namely Lyapunov vectors (LVs), singular vectors (SVs) and bred vectors (BVs) in two systems, using the Wolfe–Samelson (2007 Tellus A 59 355–66) algorithm to compute all of the Lyapunov vectors. The first system is the Lorenz (1963 J. Atmos. Sci. 20 130–41) three-variable model. Although the leading Lyapunov vector, LV1, grows fastest globally, the second Lyapunov vector, LV2, which has zero growth globally, often grows faster than LV1 locally. Whenever this happens, BVs grow closer to LV2, suggesting that in larger atmospheric or oceanic models where several instabilities can grow in different areas of the world, BVs will grow toward the fastest growing local unstable mode. A comparison of their growth rates at different times shows that all three types of dynamical vectors have the ability to predict regime changes and the duration of the new regime based on their growth rates in the last orbit of the old regime, as shown for BVs by Evans et al (2004 Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 520–4). LV1 and BVs have similar predictive skill, LV2 has a tendency to produce false alarms, and even LV3 shows that maximum decay is also associated with regime change. Initial and final SVs grow much faster and are the most accurate predictors of regime change, although the characteristics of the initial SVs are strongly dependent on the length of the optimization window. The second system is the toy ‘ocean-atmosphere’ model developed by Peña and Kalnay (2004 Nonlinear Process. Geophys. 11 319–27) coupling three Lorenz (1963 J. Atmos. Sci. 20 130–41) systems with different time scales, in order to test the effects of fast and slow modes of growth on the dynamical vectors. A fast ‘extratropical atmosphere’ is weakly coupled to a fast ‘tropical atmosphere’ which is, in turn, strongly coupled to a slow ‘ocean’ system, the latter coupling

Wind Statistics Offshore based on Satellite Images

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hasager, Charlotte Bay; Mouche, Alexis; Badger, Merete

2009-01-01

-based observations become available. At present preliminary results are obtained using the routine methods. The first step in the process is to retrieve raw SAR data, calibrate the images and use a priori wind direction as input to the geophysical model function. From this process the wind speed maps are produced....... The wind maps are geo-referenced. The second process is the analysis of a series of geo-referenced SAR-based wind maps. Previous research has shown that a relatively large number of images are needed for achieving certain accuracies on mean wind speed, Weibull A and k (scale and shape parameters......Ocean wind maps from satellites are routinely processed both at Risø DTU and CLS based on the European Space Agency Envisat ASAR data. At Risø the a priori wind direction is taken from the atmospheric model NOGAPS (Navel Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System) provided by the U.S. Navy...

Dynamic response signatures of a scaled model platform for floating wind turbines in an ocean wave basin.

Science.gov (United States)

Jaksic, V; O'Shea, R; Cahill, P; Murphy, J; Mandic, D P; Pakrashi, V

2015-02-28

Understanding of dynamic behaviour of offshore wind floating substructures is extremely important in relation to design, operation, maintenance and management of floating wind farms. This paper presents assessment of nonlinear signatures of dynamic responses of a scaled tension-leg platform (TLP) in a wave tank exposed to different regular wave conditions and sea states characterized by the Bretschneider, the Pierson-Moskowitz and the JONSWAP spectra. Dynamic responses of the TLP were monitored at different locations using load cells, a camera-based motion recognition system and a laser Doppler vibrometer. The analysis of variability of the TLP responses and statistical quantification of their linearity or nonlinearity, as non-destructive means of structural monitoring from the output-only condition, remains a challenging problem. In this study, the delay vector variance (DVV) method is used to statistically study the degree of nonlinearity of measured response signals from a TLP. DVV is observed to create a marker estimating the degree to which a change in signal nonlinearity reflects real-time behaviour of the structure and also to establish the sensitivity of the instruments employed to these changes. The findings can be helpful in establishing monitoring strategies and control strategies for undesirable levels or types of dynamic response and can help to better estimate changes in system characteristics over the life cycle of the structure. © 2015 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

Ocean, Land and Meteorology Studies Using Space-Based Lidar Measurements

Science.gov (United States)

Hu,Yongxiang

2009-01-01

CALIPSO's main mission objective is studying the climate impact of clouds and aerosols in the atmosphere. CALIPSO also collects information about other components of the Earth's ecosystem, such as oceans and land. This paper introduces the physics concepts and presents preliminary results for the valueadded CALIPSO Earth system science products. These include ocean surface wind speeds, column atmospheric optical depths, ocean subsurface backscatter, land surface elevations, atmospheric temperature profiles, and A-train data fusion products.

Insecticide resistance in disease vectors from Mayotte: an opportunity for integrated vector management.

Science.gov (United States)

Pocquet, Nicolas; Darriet, Frédéric; Zumbo, Betty; Milesi, Pascal; Thiria, Julien; Bernard, Vincent; Toty, Céline; Labbé, Pierrick; Chandre, Fabrice

2014-07-01

Mayotte, a small island in the Indian Ocean, has been affected for many years by vector-borne diseases. Malaria, Bancroftian filariasis, dengue, chikungunya and Rift Valley fever have circulated or still circulate on the island. They are all transmitted by Culicidae mosquitoes. To limit the impact of these diseases on human health, vector control has been implemented for more than 60 years on Mayotte. In this study, we assessed the resistance levels of four major vector species (Anopheles gambiae, Culex pipiens quinquefasciatus, Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus) to two types of insecticides: i) the locally currently-used insecticides (organophosphates, pyrethroids) and ii) alternative molecules that are promising for vector control and come from different insecticide families (bacterial toxins or insect growth regulators). When some resistance was found to one of these insecticides, we characterized the mechanisms involved. Larval and adult bioassays were used to evaluate the level of resistance. When resistance was found, we tested for the presence of metabolic resistance through detoxifying enzyme activity assays, or for target-site mutations through molecular identification of known resistance alleles. Resistance to currently-used insecticides varied greatly between the four vector species. While no resistance to any insecticides was found in the two Aedes species, bioassays confirmed multiple resistance in Cx. p. quinquefasciatus (temephos: ~ 20 fold and deltamethrin: only 10% mortality after 24 hours). In An. gambiae, resistance was scarce: only a moderate resistance to temephos was found (~5 fold). This resistance appears to be due only to carboxyl-esterase overexpression and not to target modification. Finally, and comfortingly, none of the four species showed resistance to any of the new insecticides. The low resistance observed in Mayotte's main disease vectors is particularly interesting, because it leaves a range of tools useable by vector control

Coastal upwelling by wind-driven forcing in Jervis Bay, New South Wales: A numerical study for 2011

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Youn-Jong; Jalón-Rojas, Isabel; Wang, Xiao Hua; Jiang, Donghui

2018-06-01

The Princeton Ocean Model (POM) was used to investigate an upwelling event in Jervis Bay, New South Wales (SE Australia), with varying wind directions and strengths. The POM was adopted with a downscaling approach for the regional ocean model one-way nested to a global ocean model. The upwelling event was detected from the observed wind data and satellite sea surface temperature images. The validated model reproduced the upwelling event showing the input of bottom cold water driven by wind to the bay, its subsequent deflection to the south, and its outcropping to the surface along the west and south coasts. Nevertheless, the behavior of the bottom water that intruded into the bay varied with different wind directions and strengths. Upwelling-favorable wind directions for flushing efficiency within the bay were ranked in the following order: N (0°; northerly) > NNE (30°; northeasterly) > NW (315°; northwesterly) > NE (45°; northeasterly) > ENE (60°; northeasterly). Increasing wind strengths also enhance cold water penetration and water exchange. It was determined that wind-driven downwelling within the bay, which occurred with NNE, NE and ENE winds, played a key role in blocking the intrusion of the cold water upwelled through the bay entrance. A northerly wind stress higher than 0.3 N m-2 was required for the cold water to reach the northern innermost bay.

"Rapid Revisit" Measurements of Sea Surface Winds Using CYGNSS

Science.gov (United States)

Park, J.; Johnson, J. T.

2017-12-01

The Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) is a space-borne GNSS-R (GNSS-Reflectometry) mission that launched December 15, 2016 for ocean surface wind speed measurements. CYGNSS includes 8 small satellites in the same LEO orbit, so that the mission provides wind speed products having unprecedented coverage both in time and space to study multi-temporal behaviors of oceanic winds. The nature of CYGNSS coverage results in some locations on Earth experiencing multiple wind speed measurements within a short period of time (a "clump" of observations in time resulting in a "rapid revisit" series of measurements). Such observations could seemingly provide indications of regions experiencing rapid changes in wind speeds, and therefore be of scientific utility. Temporally "clumped" properties of CYGNSS measurements are investigated using early CYGNSS L1/L2 measurements, and the results show that clump durations and spacing vary with latitude. For example, the duration of a clump can extend as long as a few hours at higher latitudes, with gaps between clumps ranging from 6 to as high as 12 hours depending on latitude. Examples are provided to indicate the potential of changes within a clump to produce a "rapid revisit" product for detecting convective activity. Also, we investigate detector design for identifying convective activities. Results from analyses using recent CYGNSS L2 winds will be provided in the presentation.

Turbulent Structure Under Short Fetch Wind Waves

Science.gov (United States)

2015-12-01

maximum 200 words ) Momentum transfer from wind forcing into the ocean is complicated by the presence of surface waves. Wind momentum and energy are...1,520 m from the mouth of the river to the deployment site ). Map created in Google Earth, October 12, 2015, http://www.google.com/earth/. 33...Doppler processing electronics for each transducer uses 14 bit analog to digital converter to digitize the 1.2 MHz acoustic frequency from the four

Coupled Atmosphere-Wave-Ocean Modeling of Tropical Cyclones: Progress, Challenges, and Ways Forward

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Shuyi

2015-04-01

It has long been recognized that air-sea interaction plays an important role in tropical cyclones (TC) intensity change. However, most current numerical weather prediction (NWP) models are deficient in predicting TC intensity. The extreme high winds, intense rainfall, large ocean waves, and copious sea spray in TCs push the surface-exchange parameters for temperature, water vapor, and momentum into untested regimes. Parameterizations of air-sea fluxes in NWP models are often crude and create "manmade" energy source/sink that does not exist, especially in the absence of a fully interactive ocean in the model. The erroneous surface heat, moisture, and momentum fluxes can cause compounding errors in the model (e.g., precipitation, water vapor, boundary layer properties). The energy source (heat and moisture fluxes from the ocean) and sink (surface friction and wind-induced upper ocean cooling) are critical to TC intensity. However, observations of air-sea fluxes in TCs are very limited, especially in extreme high wind conditions underneath of the eyewall region. The Coupled Boundary Layer Air-Sea Transfer (CBLAST) program was designed to better understand the air-sea interaction, especially in high wind conditions, which included laboratory and coupled model experiments and field campaign in 2003-04 hurricane seasons. Significant progress has been made in better understanding of air-sea exchange coefficients up to 30 m/s, i.e., a leveling off in drag coefficient and relatively invariant exchange coefficient of enthalpy with wind speed. More recently, the Impact of Typhoon on the Ocean in the Pacific (ITOP) field campaign in 2010 has provided an unprecedented data set to study the air-sea fluxes in TCs and their impact on TC structure and intensity. More than 800 GPS dropsondes and 900 AXBTs/AXCTs as well as drifters, floats, and moorings were deployed in TCs, including Typhoons Fanapi and Malakas, and Supertyphoon Megi with a record peak wind speed of more than 80 m

Hurricane Wind Speed Estimation Using WindSat 6 and 10 GHz Brightness Temperatures

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lei Zhang

2016-08-01

Full Text Available The realistic and accurate estimation of hurricane intensity is highly desired in many scientific and operational applications. With the advance of passive microwave polarimetry, an alternative opportunity for retrieving wind speed in hurricanes has become available. A wind speed retrieval algorithm for wind speeds above 20 m/s in hurricanes has been developed by using the 6.8 and 10.7 GHz vertically and horizontally polarized brightness temperatures of WindSat. The WindSat measurements for 15 category 4 and category 5 hurricanes from 2003 to 2010 and the corresponding H*wind analysis data are used to develop and validate the retrieval model. In addition, the retrieved wind speeds are also compared to the Remote Sensing Systems (RSS global all-weather product and stepped-frequency microwave radiometer (SFMR measurements. The statistical results show that the mean bias and the overall root-mean-square (RMS difference of the retrieved wind speeds with respect to the H*wind analysis data are 0.04 and 2.75 m/s, respectively, which provides an encouraging result for retrieving hurricane wind speeds over the ocean surface. The retrieved wind speeds show good agreement with the SFMR measurements. Two case studies demonstrate that the mean bias and RMS difference are 0.79 m/s and 1.79 m/s for hurricane Rita-1 and 0.63 m/s and 2.38 m/s for hurricane Rita-2, respectively. In general, the wind speed retrieval accuracy of the new model in hurricanes ranges from 2.0 m/s in light rain to 3.9 m/s in heavy rain.

Microwave Radiometry and Radiometers for Ocean Applications

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Skou, Niels

2008-01-01

aperture radiometer technique, both yielding imaging capability without scanning. Typical applications of microwave radiometry concerning oceans are: sea salinity, sea surface temperature, wind speed and direction, sea ice detection and classification. However, in an attempt to measure properties...

Air-Sea Momentum and Enthalpy Exchange in Coupled Atmosphere-Wave-Ocean Modeling of Tropical Cyclones

Science.gov (United States)

Curcic, M.; Chen, S. S.

2016-02-01

The atmosphere and ocean are coupled through momentum, enthalpy, and mass fluxes. Accurate representation of these fluxes in a wide range of weather and climate conditions is one of major challenges in prediction models. Their current parameterizations are based on sparse observations in low-to-moderate winds and are not suited for high wind conditions such as tropical cyclones (TCs) and winter storms. In this study, we use the Unified Wave INterface - Coupled Model (UWIN-CM), a high resolution, fully-coupled atmosphere-wave-ocean model, to better understand the role of ocean surface waves in mediating air-sea momentum and enthalpy exchange in TCs. In particular, we focus on the explicit treatment of wave growth and dissipation for calculating atmospheric and oceanic stress, and its role in upper ocean mixing and surface cooling in the wake of the storm. Wind-wave misalignment and local wave disequilibrium result in difference between atmospheric and oceanic stress being largest on the left side of the storm. We find that explicit wave calculation in the coupled model reduces momentum transfer into the ocean by more than 10% on average, resulting in reduced cooling in TC's wake and subsequent weakening of the storm. We also investigate the impacts of sea surface temperature and upper ocean parameterization on air-sea enthalpy fluxes in the fully coupled model. High-resolution UWIN-CM simulations of TCs with various intensities and structure are conducted in this study to better understand the complex TC-ocean interaction and improve the representation of air-sea coupling processes in coupled prediction models.

The Lake Turkana wind farm project

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Burlando, M.; Durante, F. [DEWI GmbH, Genoa (Italy); Claveri, L. [DEWI GmbH, Oldenburg (Germany)

2010-08-15

The Lake Turkana wind farm is one of the largest wind farm projects to be realised in the African Continent, and the first of its kind in Kenya. After its full commissioning in 2012, the wind farm will be generating 300 MW of clean power almost steadily thanks to the very peculiar characteristics of the wind climate of north-western Kenya. Until now, only northern African countries such as Morocco and Egypt had used wind power for commercial purposes on the continent. Projects are now beginning to bloom south of the Sahara as governments realise that harnessing the vast wind potential can efficiently meet the growing demand of electric power. With the Lake Turkana wind farm project and other minor projects, Kenya is trying to lead the way. The project consists of building 365 wind turbines Vestas V52 of hub height 45 m and nominal power 850 kW, corresponding to about 30% of Kenya's current installed power. The project includes also reinforcing 200 km of roads and bridges to transport the wind turbines from the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa to the northwestern Kenya, and adding more than 400 km of transmission lines and several substations to connect the wind farm and supply power to the national electric grid. (orig.)

Ocean water cycle: its recent amplification and impact on ocean circulation

Science.gov (United States)

Vinogradova, Nadya

2016-04-01

Oceans are the largest reservoir of the world's water supply, accounting for 97% of the Earth's water and supplying more than 75% of the evaporated and precipitated water in the global water cycle. Therefore, in order to predict the future of the global hydrological cycle, it is essential to understand the changes in its largest component, which is the flux of freshwater over the oceans. Here we examine the change in the ocean water cycle and the ocean's response to such changes that were happening during the last two decades. The analysis is based on a data-constrained ocean state estimate that synthesizes all of the information available in the surface fluxes, winds, observations of sea level, temperature, salinity, geoid, etc., as well as in the physical constraints, dynamics, and conservation statements that are embedded in the equations of the MIT general circulation model. Closeness to observations and dynamical consistency of the solution ensures a physically realistic correspondence between the atmospheric forcing and oceanic fluxes, including the ocean's response to freshwater input. The results show a robust pattern of change in the ocean water cycle in the last twenty years. The pattern of changes indicates a general tendency of drying of the subtropics, and wetting in the tropics and mid-to-high latitudes, following the "rich get richer and the poor get poorer" paradigm in many ocean regions. Using a closed property budget analysis, we then investigate the changes in the oceanic state (salinity, temperature, sea level) during the same twenty-year period. The results are discussed in terms of the origin of surface signatures, and differentiated between those that are attributed to short-term natural variability and those that result from an intensified hydrological cycle due to warming climate.

A modified objective mapping technique for scatterometer wind data

Science.gov (United States)

Kelly, Kathryn A.; Caruso, Michael J.

1990-01-01

A method for generating high-resolution wind maps from scatterometer data was developed and tested on synthetic data for the northeast Pacific Ocean. It is shown that, unlike the wind fields generated by current GCMs, the wind maps constructed by this method retain the high spatial resolution of the scatterometer wherever adequate measurements exist. For the NASA scatterometer, this method would produce every 12 hours a wind map with spatial resolution that preserves the small-scale features of the original data over about half the mapped region. Over the rest of the region, maps with somewhat lower resolution and accuracy will be obtained.

Centennial-Scale Relationship Between the Southern Hemisphere Westerly Winds and Temperature

Science.gov (United States)

Hodgson, D. A.; Perren, B.; Roberts, S. J.; Sime, L. C.; Verleyen, E.; Van Nieuwenhuyze, W.; Vyverman, W.

2017-12-01

Recent changes in the intensity and position of the Southern Hemisphere Westerly Winds (SHW) have been implicated in a number of important physical changes in the Southern High Latitudes. These include changes in the efficiency of the Southern Ocean CO2 sink through alterations in ocean circulation, the loss of Antarctic ice shelves through enhanced basal melting, changes in Antarctic sea ice extent, and warming of the Antarctic Peninsula. Many of these changes have far-reaching implications for global climate and sea level rise. Despite the importance of the SHW in global climate, our current understanding of the past and future behaviour of the westerly winds is limited by relatively few reconstructions and measurements of the SHW in their core belt over the Antarctic Circumpolar Current; the region most relevant to Southern Ocean air-sea gas exchange. The aim of this study was to reconstruct changes in the relative strength of the SHW at Marion Island, one of a small number of sub-Antarctic islands that lie in the core of the SHWs. We applied independent diatom- and geochemistry- based methods to track past changes in relative wind intensity. This mutiproxy approach provides a validation that the proxies are responding to the external forcing (the SHW) rather than local (e.g. precipitation ) or internal dynamics. Results show that that the strength of the SHW are intrinsically linked to extratropical temperatures over centennial timescales, with warmer temperatures driving stronger winds. Our findings also suggest that large variations in the path and intensity of the westerly winds are driven by relatively small variations in temperature over these timescales. This means that with continued climate warming, even in the absence of anthropogenic ozone-depletion, we should anticipate large shifts in the SHW, causing stronger, more poleward-intensified winds in the decades and centuries to come, with attendant impacts on ocean circulation, ice shelf stability, and

Development of a standardised cup anemometer suited to wind energy applications. Final report

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dahlberg, J.Aa.; Gustavsson, J.; Ronsten, G. [Aeronautical Research Inst. of Sweden, Bromma (Sweden); Friis Pedersen, T.; Schmidt Paulsen, U. [Risoe National Laboratory, Roskilde (Denmark); Westermann, D. [German Wind Energy Inst., Wilhelmshaven (Germany)

2002-05-01

Errors associated with the measurements and interpretation of the measured wind speed are the major sources of uncertainties in power performance testing of wind turbines. Field comparisons of well calibrated anemometers of different types often show significant and not acceptable differences. The objective were to determine the optimum design for a cup anemometer which should be free from the design faults associated with all of the instruments currently commercially available. The objective were also to prepare a classification system for cup anemometers which will allow users of anemometry in the wind energy field to rank and select anemometers suited to specific required applications. The extensive experiments including tests in wind tunnels, of more than 500 anemometer configurations, fields tests and tests in laboratories together with the assessment and modelling work have helped to build up a thorough knowledge of the importance of different design parameters in terms of various behavioural effects. Influenced by trends from the international standardisation work, an early decision was made to focus on a vector, 3D, (angle-insensitive anemometer) cup-anemometer and to focus on conical cups since their sensitivity to vertical velocity components appeared to be less sensitive to the wind speed. The key measures taken to develop the new design consisted of an appropriate selection of the detailed design of the cup geometry's and mounting the cups at appropriate radius on a slender symmetric body. The development finally ended with an anemometer that gave a very good flat response within 1 % over the range from -45 deg to +35 deg and had a good linear calibration curve. Four prototypes of the anemometer optimised for flat response were produced. The flat response was also confirmed by field tests over the range {+-}20 deg. A patent application of the new anemometer was filed on the 6th of October 2000. By the time the project was initiated there was a

An appraisal of wind speed distribution prediction by soft computing methodologies: A comparative study

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Petković, Dalibor; Shamshirband, Shahaboddin; Anuar, Nor Badrul; Saboohi, Hadi; Abdul Wahab, Ainuddin Wahid; Protić, Milan; Zalnezhad, Erfan; Mirhashemi, Seyed Mohammad Amin

2014-01-01

Highlights: • Probabilistic distribution functions of wind speed. • Two parameter Weibull probability distribution. • To build an effective prediction model of distribution of wind speed. • Support vector regression application as probability function for wind speed. - Abstract: The probabilistic distribution of wind speed is among the more significant wind characteristics in examining wind energy potential and the performance of wind energy conversion systems. When the wind speed probability distribution is known, the wind energy distribution can be easily obtained. Therefore, the probability distribution of wind speed is a very important piece of information required in assessing wind energy potential. For this reason, a large number of studies have been established concerning the use of a variety of probability density functions to describe wind speed frequency distributions. Although the two-parameter Weibull distribution comprises a widely used and accepted method, solving the function is very challenging. In this study, the polynomial and radial basis functions (RBF) are applied as the kernel function of support vector regression (SVR) to estimate two parameters of the Weibull distribution function according to previously established analytical methods. Rather than minimizing the observed training error, SVR p oly and SVR r bf attempt to minimize the generalization error bound, so as to achieve generalized performance. According to the experimental results, enhanced predictive accuracy and capability of generalization can be achieved using the SVR approach compared to other soft computing methodologies

Recent studies on wind seas and swells in the Indian Ocean: A review

Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)

Vethamony, P.; Rashmi, R.; Samiksha, S.V.; Aboobacker, V.M.

resolution winds are necessary to understand the effect of land-sea breeze on wind-sea generation in the coastal regions We have used atmospheric models such as MM5 and WRF to generate fine resolution winds, and the same will be used in wave models...

A Direct Comparison of Passive Polarimetry and Scatterometry Under Low- and High-Wind Conditions

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Swift, Calvin

1997-01-01

The University of Massachusetts Microwave Remote Sensing Laboratory (MIRSL) gathered coincident active and passive measurements of the ocean surface from the NASA Wallops P3 during the Ocean Wind Imaging (OWI) Experiment...

Coherency Between Volume Transport in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and Southern Hemisphere Winds

Science.gov (United States)

Makowski, Jessica; Chambers, Don; Bonin, Jennifer

2013-04-01

Previous studies have suggested that ocean bottom pressure (OBP) can be used to measure the transport variability of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC). The OBP observations from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) will be used to calculate transport along the 150°E longitude choke point, between Antarctica and Australia. We will examine whether zonally averaged wind stress, wind stress curl, or local zonal winds are more coherent with zonal mass transport variability. Preliminary studies suggest that seasonal variation in transport across 150°E is more correlated with winds along and north of the northern front of the ACC: the Sub Tropical front (STF). It also appears that interannual variations in transport along 150°E are related to wind variations south of the STF and centered south of the Sub Antarctic Front (SAF). We have observed a strong anti-correlation across the SAF, in the Indian Ocean, which suggests wind stress curl may also be responsible for transport variations. Preliminary results will be presented.

Estimating the Crustal Power Spectrum From Vector Magsat Data: Crustal Power Spectrum

Science.gov (United States)

Lowe, David A. J.; Parker, Robert L.; Purucker, Michael E.; Constable, Catherine G.

2000-01-01

The Earth's magnetic field can be subdivided into core and crustal components and we seek to characterize the crustal part through its spatial power spectrum (R(sub l)). We process vector Magsat data to isolate the crustal field and then invert power spectral densities of flight-local components along-track for R(sub l) following O'Brien et al. [1999]. Our model (LPPC) is accurate up to approximately degree 45 (lambda=900 km) - this is the resolution limit of our data and suggests that global crustal anomaly maps constructed from vector Magsat data should not contain features with wavelengths less than 900 km. We find continental power spectra to be greater than oceanic ones and attribute this to the relative thicknesses of continental and oceanic crust.

The Ocean Carbon States Database: A Proof-of-Concept Application of Cluster Analysis in the Ocean Carbon Cycle

Science.gov (United States)

Latto, Rebecca; Romanou, Anastasia

2018-01-01

In this paper, we present a database of the basic regimes of the carbon cycle in the ocean, the 'ocean carbon states', as obtained using a data mining/pattern recognition technique in observation-based as well as model data. The goal of this study is to establish a new data analysis methodology, test it and assess its utility in providing more insights into the regional and temporal variability of the marine carbon cycle. This is important as advanced data mining techniques are becoming widely used in climate and Earth sciences and in particular in studies of the global carbon cycle, where the interaction of physical and biogeochemical drivers confounds our ability to accurately describe, understand, and predict CO2 concentrations and their changes in the major planetary carbon reservoirs. In this proof-of-concept study, we focus on using well-understood data that are based on observations, as well as model results from the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) climate model. Our analysis shows that ocean carbon states are associated with the subtropical-subpolar gyre during the colder months of the year and the tropics during the warmer season in the North Atlantic basin. Conversely, in the Southern Ocean, the ocean carbon states can be associated with the subtropical and Antarctic convergence zones in the warmer season and the coastal Antarctic divergence zone in the colder season. With respect to model evaluation, we find that the GISS model reproduces the cold and warm season regimes more skillfully in the North Atlantic than in the Southern Ocean and matches the observed seasonality better than the spatial distribution of the regimes. Finally, the ocean carbon states provide useful information in the model error attribution. Model air-sea CO2 flux biases in the North Atlantic stem from wind speed and salinity biases in the subpolar region and nutrient and wind speed biases in the subtropics and tropics. Nutrient biases are shown to be most important

Wind Stress Variability Observed Over Coastal Waters

Science.gov (United States)

Ortiz-Suslow, D. G.; Haus, B. K.; Laxague, N.; Williams, N. J.; Graber, H. C.

2016-02-01

The wind stress on the ocean surface generates waves, drives currents, and enhances gas exchange; and a significant amount of work has been done to characterize the air-sea momentum flux in terms of bulk oceanographic and atmospheric parameters. However, the majority of this work to develop operational algorithms has been focused on the deep ocean and the suitability of these methods in the coastal regime has not been evaluated. The findings from a two-part field campaign will be presented which highlight the divergence of nearshore wind stress observations from conventional, deep water results. The first set of data comes from a coastal region near a relatively small, natural tidal inlet. A high degree of spatial variability was observed in both the wind stress magnitude and direction, suggestive of coastal processes (e.g., depth-limited wave affects and horizontal current shear) modulating the momentum flux from the atmosphere to the ocean surface. These shallow-water processes are typically not accounted for in conventional parameterizations. Across the experimental domain and for a given wind speed, the stress magnitude was found to be nearly 2.5 times that predicted by conventional methods; also, a high propensity for stress steering off the mean azimuthal wind direction (up to ±70 degrees) was observed and linked to horizontal current gradients produced by the tidal inlet. The preliminary findings from a second data set taken in the vicinity of the macrotidal Columbia River Mouth will also be presented. Compared to the first data set, a similar degree of variability is observed here, but the processes responsible for this are present at a much larger scale. Specifically, the Columbia River Mouth observations were made in the presence of significant swell wave energy and during periods of very high estuarine discharge. The relative angle between the wind and swell direction is expected to be significant with regards to the observed momentum flux. Also, these

Supporting Meteorological Field Experiment Missions and Postmission Analysis with Satellite Digital Data and Products

Science.gov (United States)

2011-08-01

defined surface that approximates the geoid or the equipotential surface , which would coincide exactly with the mean ocean surface of Earth if the...TCS-08 field project. The hourly estimates of intensity (maximum sustained 1-min surface winds) were used to monitor the typhoon’s rapidly changing...spacecraft is the first mission to test surface wind vector retrievals via a passive sensor (Gaiser et al. 2004). Near-real-time WindSat wind

The Ocean Carbon States Database: a proof-of-concept application of cluster analysis in the ocean carbon cycle

Science.gov (United States)

Latto, Rebecca; Romanou, Anastasia

2018-03-01

In this paper, we present a database of the basic regimes of the carbon cycle in the ocean, the ocean carbon states, as obtained using a data mining/pattern recognition technique in observation-based as well as model data. The goal of this study is to establish a new data analysis methodology, test it and assess its utility in providing more insights into the regional and temporal variability of the marine carbon cycle. This is important as advanced data mining techniques are becoming widely used in climate and Earth sciences and in particular in studies of the global carbon cycle, where the interaction of physical and biogeochemical drivers confounds our ability to accurately describe, understand, and predict CO2 concentrations and their changes in the major planetary carbon reservoirs. In this proof-of-concept study, we focus on using well-understood data that are based on observations, as well as model results from the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) climate model. Our analysis shows that ocean carbon states are associated with the subtropical-subpolar gyre during the colder months of the year and the tropics during the warmer season in the North Atlantic basin. Conversely, in the Southern Ocean, the ocean carbon states can be associated with the subtropical and Antarctic convergence zones in the warmer season and the coastal Antarctic divergence zone in the colder season. With respect to model evaluation, we find that the GISS model reproduces the cold and warm season regimes more skillfully in the North Atlantic than in the Southern Ocean and matches the observed seasonality better than the spatial distribution of the regimes. Finally, the ocean carbon states provide useful information in the model error attribution. Model air-sea CO2 flux biases in the North Atlantic stem from wind speed and salinity biases in the subpolar region and nutrient and wind speed biases in the subtropics and tropics. Nutrient biases are shown to be most important in

Regional impacts of ocean color on tropical Pacific variability

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

W. Anderson

2009-08-01

Full Text Available The role of the penetration length scale of shortwave radiation into the surface ocean and its impact on tropical Pacific variability is investigated with a fully coupled ocean, atmosphere, land and ice model. Previous work has shown that removal of all ocean color results in a system that tends strongly towards an El Niño state. Results from a suite of surface chlorophyll perturbation experiments show that the mean state and variability of the tropical Pacific is highly sensitive to the concentration and distribution of ocean chlorophyll. Setting the near-oligotrophic regions to contain optically pure water warms the mean state and suppresses variability in the western tropical Pacific. Doing the same above the shadow zones of the tropical Pacific also warms the mean state but enhances the variability. It is shown that increasing penetration can both deepen the pycnocline (which tends to damp El Niño while shifting the mean circulation so that the wind response to temperature changes is altered. Depending on what region is involved this change in the wind stress can either strengthen or weaken ENSO variability.

PIV Measurements of Flows around the Wind Turbines with a Flanged-Diffuser Shroud

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Kazuhiko Toshimitsu; Koutarou Nishikawa; Wataru Haruki; Shinichi Oono; Manabu Takao; Yuji Ohya

2008-01-01

The wind turbines with a flanged-diffuser shroud -so called "wind lens turbine"- are developed as one of high performance wind turbines by Ohya et al. In order to investigate the flow characteristics and flow acceleration, the paper presents the flow velocity measurements of a long-type and a compact-type wind turbines with a flanged-diffuser shroud by particle image velocimetry. In the case of the long type wind turbine, the velocity vec-tors of the inner flow field of the diffuser for turbine blades rotating and no blades rotating are presented at Rey-nolds number, 0.9x105. Furthermore the flow fields between with and without rotating are compared. Through the PIV measurement results, one can realize that the turbine blades rotating affects as suppress the disturbance and the flow separation near the inner wall of the diffuser. The time average velocity vectors are made on the av-erage of the instantaneous velocity data. There are two large vortices in downstream region of the diffuser. One vortex behind the flange acts as suck in wind to the diffuser and raise the inlet flow velocity. Another large vortex appears in downstream. It might be act as blockage vortex of main flow. The large blockage vortex is not clear in the instantaneous velocity vectors, however it exists clearly in the time average flow field. The flow field around the wind turbine with a compact-type flanged-diffuser shroud is also investigated. The flow pattern behind the flange of the compact-type turbine is the same as the long-type one. It means that the effect of flow acceleration is caused by the unsteady vortices behind the flange. The comparison with CFD and PIV results of meridional time-average streamlines after the compact-type diffuser is also presented.

Prediction of tropical cyclone over North Indian Ocean using WRF model: sensitivity to scatterometer winds, ATOVS and ATMS radiances

KAUST Repository

Dodla, Venkata B.

2016-05-03

Tropical cyclone prediction, in terms of intensification and movement, is important for disaster management and mitigation. Hitherto, research studies were focused on this issue that lead to improvement in numerical models, initial data with data assimilation, physical parameterizations and application of ensemble prediction. Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is the state-of-art model for cyclone prediction. In the present study, prediction of tropical cyclone (Phailin, 2013) that formed in the North Indian Ocean (NIO) with and without data assimilation using WRF model has been made to assess impacts of data assimilation. WRF model was designed to have nested two domains of 15 and 5 km resolutions. In the present study, numerical experiments are made without and with the assimilation of scatterometer winds, and radiances from ATOVS and ATMS. The model performance was assessed in respect to the movement and intensification of cyclone. ATOVS data assimilation experiment had produced the best prediction with least errors less than 100 km up to 60 hours and producing pre-deepening and deepening periods accurately. The Control and SCAT wind assimilation experiments have shown good track but the errors were 150-200 km and gradual deepening from the beginning itself instead of sudden deepening.

Ocean breeze monitoring network at the Oyster Creek Nuclear Plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Heck, W.

1987-01-01

The Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station (OCNGS) is located in New Jersey 10 km west of the Atlantic Ocean. Routine meteorological monitoring at the station has consisted of a single meteorological tower 120 m high and instrumented at the 10-m, 46-m, and 116-m levels. An analysis of 5 yr of data from this tower showed the OCNGS is affected by an ocean breeze ∼ 1 day out of 4 during May through August. This suggested the need for meteorological monitoring in addition to the single met tower at OCNGS. As a result of the 1985 OCNGS meteorological monitoring study, GPU Nuclear established an ocean breeze monitoring network in the fall of 1986. It is a permanent part of OCNGS meteorological monitoring and consists of the same sites as used in the 1985 field study. Meteorological towers are located at the ocean site, the inland site, and at OCNGS. The ocean tower is 13 m (43 ft) high, the inland tower 10 m (33 ft), and the OCNGS tower 116 m (380 ft). Wind speed, wind direction, and temperature are measured on each tower; delta-temperature is also measured on the main tower. The instruments are calibrated in the spring, summer, and fall. The network is operated and maintained by GPU Nuclear Environmental Controls. The ocean breeze monitoring network and meteorological information system forms the basis for including the effects of the ocean breeze in OCNGS emergency off-site dose assessment

PODAAC-OSCT2-L2BV2

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — This dataset consists of the version 2 Level 2B science-quality ocean surface wind vector retrievals from the Oceansat-2 scatterometer (OSCAT), which was designed...

OS2_OSCAT_LEVEL_2B_OWV_COMP_12_V2:1

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — This dataset consists of the version 2 Level 2B science-quality ocean surface wind vector retrievals from the Oceansat-2 scatterometer (OSCAT), which was designed...

Variability, interaction and change in the atmosphere-ocean-ecology system of the Western Indian Ocean.

Science.gov (United States)

Spencer, T; Laughton, A S; Flemming, N C

2005-01-15

Traditional ideas of intraseasonal and interannual climatic variability in the Western Indian Ocean, dominated by the mean cycle of seasonally reversing monsoon winds, are being replaced by a more complex picture, comprising air-sea interactions and feedbacks; atmosphere-ocean dynamics operating over intrannual to interdecadal time-scales; and climatological and oceanographic boundary condition changes at centennial to millennial time-scales. These forcings, which are mediated by the orography of East Africa and the Asian continent and by seafloor topography (most notably in this area by the banks and shoals of the Mascarene Plateau which interrupts the westward-flowing South Equatorial Current), determine fluxes of water, nutrients and biogeochemical constituents, the essential controls on ocean and shallow-sea productivity and ecosystem health. Better prediction of climatic variability for rain-fed agriculture, and the development of sustainable marine resource use, is of critical importance to the developing countries of this region but requires further basic information gathering and coordinated ocean observation systems.