The turning of the wind in the atmospheric boundary layer

Abstract

Here we use accurate observations of the wind speed vector to analyze the behavior with height of the wind direction. The observations are a combination of tall meteorological mast and long-range wind lidar measurements covering the entire atmospheric boundary layer. The observations were performed at the Høvsøre site in Denmark, which is a flat farmland area with a nearly homogeneous easterly upstream sector. Therefore, within that sector, the turning of the wind is caused by a combination of atmospheric stability, Coriolis, roughness, horizontal pressure gradient and baroclinity effects. Atmospheric stability was measured using sonic anemometers placed at different heights on the mast. Horizontal pressure gradients and baroclinity are derived from outputs of a numerical weather prediction model and are used to estimate the geostrophic wind. It is found, for these specific and relatively short periods of analysis, that under both barotropic and baroclinic conditions, the model predicts the gradient and geostrophic wind well, explaining for a particular case an 'unusual' backing of the wind. The observed conditions at the surface, on the other hand, explain the differences in wind veering. The simulated winds underpredict the turning of the wind and the boundary-layer winds in general.