Representation of North Sea Wind Conditions in the DOWA and the EMD-ConWX European Mesoscale Dataset
report
The creation of the Dutch Offshore Wind Atlas (DOWA) was part of a joint project with ECN part of TNO, Whiffle, and KNMI. The DOWA is a wind atlas based on a 10-year reanalysis, which is an hourly description of the state of the atmosphere using measurements and atmospheric (weather) models. The DOWA attempts to improve upon the ability of the KNW-atlas (previously released by KNMI in 2013) to accurately depict hourly wind field variability (i.e. correlation). In order to improve upon the KNW-atlas, the DOWA uses an updated version of the global ECMWF reanalysis (ERA5), as well as an updated version of the HARMONIE numerical weather model (Cycle 40h1.2.tg2). Furthermore, the method that was used to make the atlas was changed—there were no ‘cold starts’ within the global reanalysis and at three-hour intervals additional aircraft and satellite measurements were assimilated. Within this report, the performance of the DOWA in representing North Sea wind conditions is compared to the EMD-ConWx European mesoscale dataset that were modeled in-house in collaboration between EMD and ConWx. The performance of the two datasets is defined relative to light-detection and ranging (LiDAR) measurements at three offshore measurement sites (IJmuiden, Lichteiland Goeree, and the Europlatform). The most significant conclusion from this report is that the DOWA provides improved hourly wind speed correlation compared to the EMD-ConWx European mesoscale dataset.
Topics
TNO Identifier
865688
Publisher
TNO
Collation
24 p.
Place of publication
Petten