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Title: Evaluation of the Impact of Horizontal Grid Spacing in Terra Incognita on Coupled Mesoscale–Microscale Simulations Using the WRF Framework

Journal Article · · Monthly Weather Review
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5]
  1. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington
  2. National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado
  3. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California
  4. Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico
  5. National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colorado
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Coupled mesoscale–microscale simulations are required to provide time-varying weather-dependent inflow and forcing for large-eddy simulations under general flow conditions. Such coupling necessarily spans a wide range of spatial scales (i.e., ~10 m to ~10 km). Here in this paper, we use simulations that involve multiple nested domains with horizontal grid spacings in the terra incognita (i.e., km) that may affect simulated conditions in both the outer and inner domains. We examine the impact on simulated wind speed and turbulence associated with forcing provided by a terrain with grid spacing in the terra incognita. We perform a suite of simulations that use combinations of varying horizontal grid spacings and turbulence parameterization/modeling using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model using a combination of planetary boundary layer (PBL) and large-eddy simulation subgrid-scale (LES-SGS) models. The results are analyzed in terms of spectral energy, turbulence kinetic energy, and proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) energy. The results show that the output from the microscale domain depends on the type of turbulence model (e.g., PBL or LES-SGS model) used for a given horizontal grid spacing but is independent of the horizontal grid spacing and turbulence modeling of the parent domain. Simulation using a single domain produced less POD energy in the first few modes compared to a coupled simulation (one-way nesting) for similar horizontal grid spacing, which highlights that coupled simulations are required to accurately pass the mesoscale features into the microscale domain.

Research Organization:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Wind Energy Technologies Office
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-76RL01830; AC52-07NA27344; AC36-08GO28308
OSTI ID:
1499081
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1507284; OSTI ID: 1525742; OSTI ID: 1631689
Report Number(s):
NREL/JA-5000-72203; LLNL-JRNL-765898; PNNL-SA-140704
Journal Information:
Monthly Weather Review, Journal Name: Monthly Weather Review Vol. 147 Journal Issue: 3; ISSN 0027-0644
Publisher:
American Meteorological SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 32 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (34)

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Related Subjects

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING
mesoscale
microscale
terra incognita
turbulence
WRF
simulations
Planetary atmospheres
Large eddy simulations
Mesoscale models