Doppler Lidar Wind Profiles VAP, Rob Newsom algorithm, version 5 (c1-level)
Doppler Lidar Wind Profiles VAP, Rob Newsom algorithm, version 5
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Doppler Lidar Wind Profiles VAP, Rob Newsom algorithm, version 5
Abstract. Wind lidars are widespread and important tools in atmospheric observations. An intrinsic part of lidar measurement error is due to atmospheric variability in the remote-sensing scan volume. This study describes and quantifies the distribution of measurement error due to turbulence in varying atmospheric stability. While the lidar error model is general, we demonstrate the approach using large ensembles of virtual WindCube V2 lidar performing a profiling Doppler-beam-swinging scan in quasi-stationary large-eddy simulations (LESs) of convective and stable boundary layers. Error trends vary with the stability regime, time averaging of results, and observation height. A systematic analysis of the observation error explains dominant mechanisms and supports the findings of the empirical results. Treating the error under a random variable framework allows for informed predictions about the effect of different configurations or conditions on lidar performance. Convective conditions are most prone to large errors (up to 1.5 m s−1 in 1 Hz wind speed in strong convection), driven by the large vertical velocity variances in convective conditions and the high elevation angle of the scanning beams (62∘). Range-gate weighting induces a negative bias into the horizontal wind speeds near the surface shear layer (−0.2 m s−1 in the stable test case). Errors in the horizontal wind speed and direction computed from the wind components are sensitive to the background wind speed but have negligible dependence on the relative orientation of the instrument. Especially during low winds and in the presence of large errors in the horizontal velocity estimates, the reported wind speed is subject to a systematic positive bias (up to 0.4 m s−1 in 1 Hz measurements in strong convection). Vector time-averaged measurements can improve the behavior of the error distributions (reducing the 10 min wind speed error standard deviation to <0.3 m s−1 and the bias to <0.1 m s−1 in strong convection) with a predictable effectiveness related to the number of decorrelated samples in the time window. Hybrid schemes weighting the 10 min scalar- and vector-averaged lidar measurements are shown to be effective at reducing the wind speed biases compared to cup measurements in most of the simulated conditions, with time averages longer than 10 min recommended for best use in some unstable conditions. The approach in decomposing the error mechanisms with the help of the LES flow field could be extended to more complex measurement scenarios and scans.
A numerical experiment is carried out investigating the magnitude of biases in ground-based lidar measurements in complex flow conditions. Biases assessed include those arising from flow curvature and from the interaction of turbulence with the wind field reconstruction (WFR) algorithms used by a WindCube lidars and anemometers. RANS-CFD and WRF-LES simulations were performed for the Perdig˜ao Field Experiment site for a range of atmospheric conditions. Virtual anemometer and lidar data were generated for four locations: two near exposed ridge tops and two in low-speed regions in the valley. The LES data at these four locations show that the scalar inflation terms (the relation between scalar and vector averaged wind speed) for virtual lidar and virtual cups agree very well with predictions using perturbation theory. While the lidar errors vary greatly with location and height, the contribution from the flow curvature tends to be larger than the differences arising from scalar inflation. For one lidar/mast pair near the ridge top, comparisons between simulations and measurements are carried out for a resonant mountain wave event on June 14th, 2017, and for the whole duration of the Perdigão campaign for winds perpendicular to the ridges. The lidar error during the mountain wave, a period of strong stability and low inversion height, is significantly larger than the campaign average. The sensitivity of the lidar error to atmospheric stability is confirmed by the RANS simulations, which suggests strong sensitivity of flow curvature error to stability conditions and to the shape of the wind speed profile near the top of the boundary layer.
As part of the Perdigão 2017 campaign, vertical RHI (range-height indicator) scans with long-range pulsed Doppler wind lidars were performed aligned with the main wind direction and a wind turbine (WT) located on a mountain ridge. The measurements are used to not only retrieve flow velocities, but also their variance and - by using the turbulent broadening of the Doppler spectrum - also turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) dissipation rate. The study shows that turbulence in the WT wake is dependent on the turbulence of the inflow, but also on atmospheric stability. In stable atmospheric conditions, wakes could be analyzed up to five rotor diameters downstream (D) and showed the maximum turbulence in the wake at 2-3 D, whereas in unstable conditions, the maximum was found at 2 D and the wake could not be detected further than 3 D. A clear dependency of wake turbulence enhancement on inflow turbulence intensity is found, which levels out to no further enhancement at turbulence intensities of 30%.
We use Doppler lidar wind profiles from six locations around the globe to evaluate the wind profile forecasts in the boundary layer generated by the operational global Integrated Forecast System (IFS) from the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). The six locations selected cover a variety of surfaces with different characteristics (rural, marine, mountainous urban, and coastal urban). We first validated the Doppler lidar observations at four locations by comparison with co-located radiosonde profiles to ensure that the Doppler lidar observations were of sufficient quality. The two observation types agree well, with the mean absolute error (MAE) in wind speed almost always less than 1 m s –1 . Large deviations in the wind direction were usually only seen for low wind speeds and are due to the wind direction uncertainty increasing rapidly as the wind speed tends to zero. Time–height composites of the wind evaluation with 1 h resolution were generated, and evaluation of the model winds showed that the IFS model performs best over marine and coastal locations, where the mean absolute wind vector error was usually less than 3 m s –1 at all heights within the boundary layer. Larger errors were seen in locations where the surface was more complex, especially in the wind direction. For example, in Granada, which is near a high mountain range, the IFS model failed to capture a commonly occurring mountain breeze, which is highly dependent on the sub-grid-size terrain features that are not resolved by the model. The uncertainty in the wind forecasts increased with forecast lead time, but no increase in the bias was seen. At one location, we conditionally performed the wind evaluation based on the presence or absence of a low-level jet diagnosed from the Doppler lidar observations. The model was able to reproduce the presence of the low-level jet, but the wind speed maximum was about 2 m s –1 lower than observed. This is attributed to the effective vertical resolution of the model being too coarse to create the strong gradients in wind speed observed. Our results show that Doppler lidar is a suitable instrument for evaluating the boundary layer wind profiles in atmospheric models.
To better understand the complicated web of processes governing convective cloud life cycle and aerosol-convection interactions, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility supported deployment of a variety of advanced atmospheric measurement systems to the greater Houston, Texas, area from 1 October 2021 to 30 September 2022 as part of the Tracking Aerosol Convection Interactions Experiment (TRACER). Houston was selected as a study area because isolated convection and a variety of aerosol conditions are common in this region. This one-year ARM Mobile Facility (AMF) deployment featured a four-month intensive operational period (IOP) during summer 2022 (1 June–30 September). The ARM instrumentation was deployed at three sites along an east-west transect from La Porte, Texas to an ancillary site in a less-polluted rural region southwest of downtown Houston (Figure 1). At the La Porte Site, which is located near the Houston ship channel in an area that experiences significant pollution, the first ARM Mobile Facility (AMF1) was deployed. During the IOP, the ARM tethered balloon system (TBS) operated at the ancillary site. The second-generation C-Band Scanning ARM Precipitation Radar (CSAPR) operated near Pearland, Texas, roughly halfway between the Laporte and ancillary sites. As part of the TRACER- Coastal Urban Boundary-Layer Interactions with Convection (CUBIC) project, three boundary-layer profiling systems) were deployed along a north-south transect spanning from the University of Houston Coastal Center to the Aldine site north of downtown Houston (also blue dot in Figure 1) during the TRACER IOP. These systems included the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Severe Storms Laboratory CLAMPS2 (C2), which was deployed at the UHCC, the University of Wisconsin SPARC, which was deployed at the ARM CSAPR site near Pearland (orange diamond in middle of map in Figure 1), and the University of Oklahoma CLAMPS1 (C1), which was deployed at Aldine. These three systems have been successfully operated in various field campaigns, providing data sets that collectively offer new insights into atmospheric-boundary-layer (ABL) processes, sea-breeze (SB) circulations, and convection initiation (CI). For the TRACER IOP window, these systems ran continuously between 1 June and 26 September, 2022. Due to commitments to NOAA projects, the Doppler lidar at the UHCC site was not available until 24 June 2022. The CLAMPS and SPARC profiling systems are self-contained platforms that have benefited from several years of development and deployment. Instruments and data processing were maintained remotely, which made the 4-month deployment for the TRACER-CUBIC IOP period possible. The same basic instrument configuration comprises each system: a scanning Doppler wind lidar for flow characterization and passive profiler(s) for characterizing planetary-boundary-layer (PBL) thermodynamic properties. Each platform includes a Halo Streamline Doppler wind lidar, an Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (AERI), and a surface meteorology station. CLAMPS1 and CLAMPS2 each also include a microwave radiometer (MWR, Figure 1d). The TRACER-CUBIC hypotheses included (i) Interactions of SB and urban circulations and how they affect the PBL structure in the Houston environment, causing spatially (horizontally and vertically) and temporally highly variable flow patterns, (ii) heat, moisture, and aerosol transport and mixing depend on these flow dynamics, and (iii) an improved understanding of the flow patterns and PBL structure are critical for investigating the processes leading to CI. To test these hypotheses, the project aimed at (i) characterizing SB circulations and their impacts on the diurnal evolution of the structure of the ABL, (ii) studying the evolution of Houston’s complex urban boundary layer, and (iii) identifying effects of urban-induced circulations on pre-convective environments. TRACER-CUBIC observations generally provide good coverage during the summer IOP. Initial screening of the data indicates a good number of cases with bay-breeze (BB) and/or SB signatures, local CI, and interesting boundary-layer features such as strong nocturnal low-level jets (LLJs, Table 1). The numbers listed in rows 3-5 in this table will be further updated as part of ongoing in-depth analyses and systematic identification of local circulations and CI events. More detailed information about the data availability and quality for each instrument is provided in the “readme” files that were submitted to the ARM Data Center along with each archived data sets. These “readme” files also provide instrument descriptions, information about the data collection and processing procedures, data formats, and any additional information relevant for further data analysis.
This article provides a comprehensive review of the most recent advances in the planning, execution, and analysis of inflow and wake measurements from nacelle-mounted wind Doppler lidars. Lidars installed on top of wind turbines provide a holistic view of the inflow and wake characteristics required to characterize and optimize wind turbine performance, carry out model validation and calibration, and aid in real-time control. The need to balance the enhanced capabilities and limitations of lidars compared to traditional anemometers inspired a broad variety of approaches for scan design and wind reconstruction, which we discuss in this review. We give particular emphasis to identifying common guidelines and gaps in the available literature with the aim of providing an exhaustive picture of the state-of-the-art techniques for reconstructing wind plant flow using nacelle-mounted lidars.
Wind profiling by Doppler lidar is common practice and highly useful in a wide range of applications. Airborne Doppler lidar can provide additional insights relative to ground-based systems by allowing for spatially distributed and targeted measurements. Providing a link between theory and measurement, a first large eddy simulation (LES)-based airborne Doppler lidar simulator (ADLS) has been developed. Simulated measurements are conducted based on LES wind fields, considering the coordinate and geometric transformations applicable to real-world measurements. The ADLS provides added value as the input truth used to create the measurements is known exactly, which is nearly impossible in real-world situations. Thus, valuable insight can be gained into measurement system characteristics as well as retrieval strategies. As an example application, airborne Doppler lidar wind profiling is investigated using the ADLS. For commonly used airborne velocity azimuth display (AVAD) techniques, flow homogeneity is assumed throughout the retrieval volume, a condition which is violated in turbulent boundary layer flow. Assuming an ideal measurement system, the ADLS allows to isolate and evaluate the error in wind profiling which occurs due to the violation of the flow homogeneity assumption. Overall, the ADLS demonstrates that wind profiling is possible in turbulent wind field conditions with reasonable errors (root mean squared error of 0.36 m s –1 for wind speed when using a commonly used system setup and retrieval strategy for the conditions investigated). Nevertheless, flow inhomogeneity, e.g., due to boundary layer turbulence, can cause an important contribution to wind profiling error and is non-negligible. Results suggest that airborne Doppler lidar wind profiling at low wind speeds (<5 m s –1 ) can be biased, if conducted in regions of inhomogeneous flow conditions.
The most common profiling techniques for the atmospheric boundary layer based on a monostatic Doppler wind lidar rely on the assumption of horizontal homogeneity of the flow. This assumption breaks down in the presence of either natural or human-made obstructions that can generate significant flow distortions. The need to deploy ground-based lidars near operating wind turbines for the American WAKE experimeNt (AWAKEN) spurred a search for novel profiling techniques that could avoid the influence of the flow modifications caused by the wind farms. With this goal in mind, two well-established profiling scanning strategies have been retrofitted to scan in a tilted fashion and steer the beams away from the more severely inhomogeneous region of the flow. Results from a field test at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's 135-m meteorological tower show that the accuracy of the horizontal mean flow reconstruction is insensitive to the tilt of the scan, although higher-order wind statistics are severely deteriorated at extreme tilts mainly due to geometrical error amplification. A numerical study of the AWAKEN domain based on the Weather Research and Forecasting Model and large-eddy simulation are also conducted to test the effectiveness of tilted profiling. It is shown that a threefold reduction of the error on inflow mean wind speed can be achieved for a lidar placed at the base of the turbine using tilted profiling.
Abstract. In July 2018, the International Society for Atmospheric Research using Remotely piloted Aircraft (ISARRA) hosted a flight week to showcase the role remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPASs) can have in filling the atmospheric data gap. This campaign was called Lower Atmospheric Process Studies at Elevation – a Remotely-piloted Aircraft Team Experiment (LAPSE-RATE). In support of this campaign, ground-based remote and in situ systems were also deployed for the campaign. The University of Oklahoma deployed the Collaborative Lower Atmospheric Mobile Profiling System (CLAMPS), the University of Colorado deployed two Doppler wind lidars, and the National Severe Storms Laboratory deployed a mobile mesonet with the ability to launch radiosondes. This paper focuses on the data products from these instruments that result in profiles of the atmospheric state. The data are publicly available in the Zenodo LAPSE-RATE community portal (https://zenodo.org/communities/lapse-rate/, 19 January 2021). The profile data discussed are available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3780623 (Bell and Klein, 2020), https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3780593 (Bell et al., 2020b), https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3727224 (Bell et al., 2020a), https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3738175 (Waugh, 2020b), https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3720444 (Waugh, 2020a), and https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3698228 (Lundquist et al., 2020).
Abstract Low-level jets (LLJs) are an important nocturnal source of wind energy in the U.S. Great Plains. An August 2017 lidar-based field-measurement campaign [the Land–Atmosphere Feedback Experiment (LAFE)] studied LLJs over the central SGP site in Oklahoma and found nearly equal occurrences of the usual southerly jets and postfrontal northeasterly jets—typically rare during this season—for an opportunity to compare the two types of LLJs during this month. Southerly winds were stronger than the northeasterlies by more than 4 m s −1 on average, reflecting a significantly higher frequency of winds stronger than 12 m s −1 . The analysis of this dataset has been expanded to other SGP Doppler-lidar sites to quantify the variability of winds and LLJ properties between sites of different land use. Geographic variations of winds over the study area were noted: on southerly wind nights, the winds blew stronger at the highest, westernmost sites by 2 m s −1 , whereas on the northeasterly flow nights, the easternmost sites had the strongest wind speeds. Lidar measurements at 5 sites during August 2017, contrasted to the 2016–21 summertime data, revealed unusual wind and LLJ conditions. Temporal hodographs using hourly averaged winds at multiple heights revealed unorganized behavior in the turbulent stable boundary layer (SBL) below the jet nose. Above the nose, some nights showed veering qualitatively similar to inertial oscillation (IO) behavior, but at amplitudes much smaller than expected for an IO, whereas other nights showed little veering. Vertical hodographs had a linear shape in the SBL, indicating little directional shear there, and veering above, resulting in a hook-shaped hodograph with height. Significance Statement Doppler-lidar measurements at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Southern Great Plains (SGP) were used to quantify the variability of winds and low-level jet (LLJ) properties between five sites of different land use and wind regimes across this area. Knowledge of wind and LLJ structure and dynamics is important for many applications, and strong southerly LLJ winds at night are an important resource for wind energy. The analysis of multiyear (2016–21) summertime LLJ parameters provided insight into the LLJ climatology in this part of the Great Plains.
Wind speed and direction, together with pressure, temperature, and relative humidity, are the most fundamental atmospheric state parameters. Accurate measurement of these parameters is crucial for numerical weather prediction. Vertically resolved wind measurements in the atmospheric boundary layer are particularly important for modeling pollutant and aerosol transport. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility currently operates several scanning coherent Doppler lidar (DL) systems that provide accurate height-resolved measurements of wind speed and direction. These instruments operate in the near infrared (IR;1.5 microns) and provide range-resolved measurements of radial velocity, attenuated aerosol backscatter, and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The systems are operated using a fixed scan schedule consisting of plan position indicator (PPI) or Doppler Beam-Swing (DBS) scans. PPI scans are performed by scanning the beam in azimuth while maintaining a fixed elevation angle, and DBS scans are similar but typically also include a vertical beam. Radial velocity data from these scans are processed to yield profiles of wind speed direction. For stationary ground-based deployments, the Doppler Lidar Horizontal Wind Profiles (DLPROF-WIND) Value-Added-Product (VAP) provides height- and time-resolved measurements of the winds (Newsom and Krishnamurthy 2022). For operation on a moving platform, modifications to the existing DLPROF-WIND VAP are required to compensate for the effects of the platform motion. This report describes a parallel VAP, DLMCPROF-WIND, that was developed for computing motion-compensated wind profiles from ARM Doppler lidar data acquired during the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) campaign, when the lidar was deployed on the German icebreaker Polarstern.
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Abstract Doppler-lidar wind-profile measurements at three sites were used to evaluate NWP model errors from two versions of NOAA’s 3-km-grid HRRR model, to see whether updates in the latest version 4 reduced errors when compared against the original version 1. Nested (750-m grid) versions of each were also tested to see how grid spacing affected forecast skill. The measurements were part of the field phase of the Second Wind Forecasting Improvement Project (WFIP2), an 18-month deployment into central Oregon–Washington, a major wind-energy-producing region. This study focuses on errors in simulating marine intrusions, a summertime, 600–800-m-deep, regional sea-breeze flow found to generate large errors. HRRR errors proved to be complex and site dependent. The most prominent error resulted from a premature drop in modeled marine-intrusion wind speeds after local midnight, when lidar-measured winds of greater than 8 m s −1 persisted through the next morning. These large negative errors were offset at low levels by positive errors due to excessive mixing, complicating the interpretation of model “improvement,” such that the updates to the full-scale versions produced mixed results, sometimes enhancing but sometimes degrading model skill. Nesting consistently improved model performance, with version 1’s nest producing the smallest errors overall. HRRR’s ability to represent the stages of sea-breeze forcing was evaluated using radiation budget, surface-energy balance, and near-surface temperature measurements available during WFIP2. The significant site-to-site differences in model error and the complex nature of these errors mean that field-measurement campaigns having dense arrays of profiling sensors are necessary to properly diagnose and characterize model errors, as part of a systematic approach to NWP model improvement. Significance Statement Dramatic increases in NWP model skill will be required over the coming decades. This paper describes the role of major deployments of accurate profiling sensors in achieving that goal and presents an example from the Second Wind Forecast Improvement Program (WFIP2). Wind-profile data from scanning Doppler lidars were used to evaluate two versions of HRRR, the original and an updated version, and nested versions of each. This study focuses on the ability of updated HRRR versions to improve upon predicting a regional sea-breeze flow, which was found to generate large errors by the original HRRR. Updates to the full-scale HRRR versions produced mixed results, but the finer-mesh versions consistently reduced model errors.
Abstract not provided.
The performance of the NOAA High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model for capturing low-level winds near a wind energy production site during summer 2019 is evaluated. This study catalogs the ability of HRRR to predict boundary layer dynamics relevant to wind energy interests over complex terrain, which has presented challenges for weather and energy forecasting. Performance is evaluated by comparing HRRR output to wind-profiling Doppler lidars at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Site 300. HRRR captured the diurnal profile of horizontal winds in the observed 150-m layer, despite strong underpredictions (∼4 m s −1 ) during evening and nighttime hours. These underpredictions may be a result of local speedup flows observed by the lidars, which were unresolved in HRRR due to their small spatial extent. HRRR bias magnitude relative to observations was found to be minimal during days with synoptic-scale troughs and strong 850-hPa geopotential gradients, while bias magnitude was maximal during days with synoptic ridging and weak 850-hPa geopotential gradients. To translate wind speed predictions to energy forecasting, generic turbine models were used to estimate power generation for turbines characteristic of the nearby Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area. Results show that HRRR-based energy estimates predicted daytime power generation adequately relative to lidar-based estimates with an 18-h lead time (bias magnitude < 0.4 MW from 0900 to 1400 LT) but overpredicted power during the rest of the diurnal cycle (bias > 1 MW). These results demonstrate conditions under which HRRR performs well for wind energy applications in complex terrain, while highlighting biases that require further investigation to support usage of a high-resolution model for wind energy forecasts.
Many physical datasets are generated by collections of instruments that make measurements at regular time intervals. For such regular monitoring data, we extend the framework of half-spectral covariance functions to the case of nonstationarity in space and time and demonstrate that this method provides a natural and tractable way to incorporate complex behaviors into a covariance model. Further, we use this method with fully time-domain computations to obtain bona fide maximum likelihood estimators—as opposed to using Whittle-type likelihood approximations, for example—that can still be computed conveniently. Additionally, we apply this method to very high-frequency Doppler LIDAR vertical wind velocity measurements, demonstrating that the model can expressively capture the extreme nonstationarity of dynamics above and below the atmospheric boundary layer and, more importantly, the interaction of the process dynamics across it.