Vaisala Energy Support
Doesn’t horizontal resolution matter? What about downscaling with weather models like WRF and MM5?
3TIER internal analysis has shown that downscaling the re-analysis data adds significant value to the hourly and daily correlations when compared to observed data. Improvements in the correlations on the monthly and inter-annual time scale due to downscaling are much less. If the final data are being used in applications where the fidelity of the hourly and daily values are critically important then downscaling can add value. However if these data are being used to perform a long-term correction – then the ability to distinguish a windy year from a non-windy year is more important. Downscaling adds little to no skill in the ability to sort years, especially for the ERA-Interim data which is at significantly higher resolution (80km) and includes many more vertical levels than the NNRP data (280km).
While this result may come as a surprise – it can be better understood in the context of weather versus climate. Models such as WRF are weather simulation models. If actual climate variability is not captured in the re-analysis data, then a weather model can not recreate it. What the weather model can do is simulate weather patterns from the re-analysis data – hence the improvement on the hourly and especially daily time scales.
More Wind Online Tools Questions
- Which Wind Time Series dataset should I choose?
- How do I enter a location?
- How do I interpret the graph provided by the Monthly Mean Wind Speed Tool?
- What does the Annual Mean Wind Speed Tool provide?
- How do I interpret the wind rose provided by the Annual Mean Wind Rose Tool?
- What does the Wind Speed Distribution Tool provide?
- Why do we show a +/- next to the annual value?
- What wind speeds are shown on the map?
- How can I compare sites side-by-side?
- What affects wind at a given site?
- What is a hub height?
- How do I change locations for individual tools?
- What makes a good wind resource?
- What do the colors on the map mean?
- What is the source of the information?
- How accurate are the Wind Prospecting Tools?
- Why does the map disappear?
- How was the 5 km global wind dataset created?
- Does 3TIER incorporate observational data?
- What were 3TIER's data validation procedures for the 5 km global wind dataset?
- What happened to 3TIER’s Reference Wind Time Series Product?
- Why do all the various datasets have different start and end times?
- Why are the long-term mean values of each data set so similar and why don’t they match the values I get when I download these data directly from the various global modeling centers?
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