Diurnal variations of wind speeds at a shortgrass prairie site — a model

Abstract

Comparison of the mean monthly diurnal variation of wind speed and air temperature (2 m) shows that they have the same pattern and that these patterns change seasonally in the same manner. A model for stimulated diurnal variation in air temperature was used to represent diurnal variations of surface wind speeds at a shortgrass prairie site. Inputs for the model are latitude, Julian date and daily wind travel. The important assumptions for the model are (1) the maximum wind speed occurs during the afternoon period, (2) the minimum wind speed occurs sometime around sunrise, (3) during the day the wind speeds can be described with a truncated sine function, and (4) during the night the wind speeds can be described with an exponential function. Reasonable approximations of long-term hourly mean diurnal variations in wind speed were simulated; however, the model was less accurate for individual days. The wind speed model has potential application in estimating wind statistics when wind power calculations are required, and as abiotic data input for research and application models.