Wind Energy Simulation Toolkit (WEST):

A wind mapping system for use by wind energy industry

Wei Yu1,4, Robert Benoit1, Claude Girard1, Anna, Glazer1, David Lemarquis1, James R. Salmon2,
and Jean-Paul Pinard3.
1

Recheche en Prvison Numrique (RPN), Meteorological Research Branch (MRB),

Environment Canada, 2121 TransCanada Highway, #500, Dorval (QC), H9P 1J3,
Canada.
2
Zephyr North, 4034 Mainway, Burlington (ON), L7M 4B9, Canada
3
JP Pinard Consulting, 703 Wheeler St., Whitehorse (YT), Y1A 2P6, Canada
4
Corresponding authors Email: Wei.Yu@ec.gc.ca,Tel: (514) 421-4773
ABSTRACT
A state-of-art wind mapping system, the Wind Energy Simulation Toolkit (WEST), was developed
in the Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC) for use by the wind energy industry. WEST is
based on a statistical-dynamical downscaling approach, i.e. (i) a statistical analysis of climate
data to determine the basic atmospheric states, and (ii) a dynamic adaptation of each basic state
to high-resolution terrain and surface roughness by using mesoscale and microscale models. The
approach has already been used by Frank and Landberg (1997), in their KAMM/WAsP method,
to create numerical wind atlas. The novel part of WEST is the fixed wind speed interval in
classification scheme and the integration of different modules (meso-/micro-scale models and
statistical module) into a single toolkit in a more portable form. WEST was built for use by
industry due to its modest request for computer resources. WEST is applied to the Gasp region
of Canada. The mesoscale model MC2 (operated within WEST) is run at 5 km resolution, while
the microscale model within WEST is at 200 m resolution. The simulation results are evaluated
with tower observations at a height of 40 m above ground level. The mean of the 29 observed
winds is 6.6 m/s. The mean absolute difference between the observed and simulated winds is
0.83 m/s with MC2 (meso-component of WEST) and 0.69 with full WEST (with both set of
components). The correlation coefficient of the mean wind speeds between the simulations and
observations for the 29 stations is improved from 0.5 with MC2 to 0.7 with WEST..

Nomenclature
'Class' .: a defined weather situation
NCEP: National Centre for Environmental Prediction
NCAR: National Centre for Atmospheric Research
NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis: A global climate database, assembled using a data assimilation
system which combines both observed and model-simulation data (first guess) (Kalnay et
al., 1996)
USGS database: surface database (terrain elevation, land use, etc.) provided by US Geological
Survey (USGS)
Mesoscale model (MC2): Mesoscale Compressible Community Model (MC2) is a limited area
model. It can provide high-resolution numerical weather prediction for a limited area with
input from global models.
Microscale model (MsMicro): MsMicro is a linearised boundary layer air flow model. It calculate
the speed-up of wind speed and derivation of wind direction due to terrains influence.
Statistic module: statistic package used for post-processing of model outputs (both mesoscale
and microscale models) in wind mapping procedure.
WEST: Wind Energy Simulation Toolkit (WEST) includes an ensemble of statistic module,
mesoscale and microscale models
Bivariate table: A bi-dimensional table showing the occurrence frequency of the event as a
function of wind speed and direction for a specific region.

1 INTRODUCTION
Wind resource assessment is a key and first step towards the installation of wind turbines for
electricity generation. Traditionally, this was, and may still be, done by interpolating and/or
extrapolating the observation data, mainly from sparse meteorological stations with anemometers
(hundreds of kilometres apart), and by installing one or more special observation masts at the
proposed (turbine) sites for wind monitoring for a period of one or two years. The reliability of
these data is the main obstacle to the wind resource assessment since many established
meteorological stations are located where wind shielding occurs (e.g. near airport buildings), or
near habitation in valleys. Installing special observation masts at the proposed site is time
consuming and expensive, particularly for the remote regions and under harsh weather
conditions. The temporal and spatial extent of the validity of these measurements depends
strongly on the climate regime and the terrain complexity of the region.
Efforts were made in development of physical model to simulate the surface boundary-layer flow
in complex terrain to overcome the limitations of simple interpolation/extrapolation of observation
data. MsMicro (Walmsley et al., 1986) and WAsP (Wind Atlas Analysis and Application program,
Troen and Petersen, 1989) are among the most popular microscale models used in wind
mapping. Both models are derived from the two-dimensional theory of Jackson and Hunt (1975).
Troen and Petersen (1989) described the procedure of wind resource assessment using a
microscale model. A regional uniform wind climate at about 1.0 km Above Ground Level (AGL) is
first established. For this, a microscale model of wind speed with height, applied to the site of the
measured data, is used to scale-up the measured winds to the specified altitude. This regional
wind climate is assumed valid for a horizontal extent of hundreds of square kilometres assuming
an average standard surface-roughness. Then, the same microscale model is used to scaledown to estimate the wind at the potential site, by accounting for the local effects at this site and
the regional wind climate established in the first step. Due to their simplicity, such microscale
models can be applied easily to a horizontal domain of hundreds of square kilometres at a gridspacing of ~ 0.1 km if long term observation data is available nearby. However, mesoscale
effects are ignored in these microscale models. As discussed in Frank and Landberg (1997),
mesoscale models can be used to estimate the wind resource taking into account mesoscale
phenomena, such as the channelling effect of wind by wide valley, if large-scale climatological
forcing is correctly specified.
WEST was built to estimate the wind resource following concepts described by Frank and
Landberg (1997) and Frank (2001). It is a stand-alone and complete toolkit which includes two
sophisticated modelling systems (mesoscale and microscale) and a statistics module.
Considerations have been taken to include a wide range of atmospheric forcing components,
both in time (from decadal to diurnal variations) and in space (from synoptic large-scale to meso/micro-scale). The paper begins with a detailed description of the WEST system. This will be
followed by an application of WEST in the Gasp region of Canada in section 3, and its validation
in section 4. Conclusions and further developments will be discussed in section 5.
2 WIND ENERGY SIMULATION TOOLKIT (WEST)
WEST is based on a statistical-dynamical downscaling approach (Frey-Buness et al., 1995). The
basic assumption is that regional climate is associated with a specific frequency distribution of
basic large-scale weather situations. The downscaling procedure is illustrated schematically in
Figure 1, and can be summarized in the following major steps:
1) A set of basic weather situations (termed classes hereafter) are defined, using relevant
meteorological parameters. In the wind energy application, the geostrophic wind is used as the
key parameter for classification. The frequency of each class is determined by applying a
statistical analysis to a long-term gridded global-dataset (e.g. NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis, Kalnay
et al., 1996). The weather situation is simplified to a single profile of atmospheric state

(temperature, wind, etc.) for the whole region. The size of the region should be large enough for a
weather situation to be determined, but as small as possible for not allowing the development of
transitional situations during the model simulation in step 2. A domain less than 1000 km by 1000
km is set for this kind of application.
2) For each class determined in the first step, a mesoscale model simulation is initialized with the
corresponding atmospheric profile, while the lateral boundary conditions are kept constant in
time. The simulation time should be long enough for the atmosphere to reach a steady state, but
as short as possible for not allowing the development of transitional weather situation (i.e. about
6-9 hrs). The convergence of the model towards the steady state depends mainly on the air
stability, model resolution and the initial state at which the model starts.
3) The mesoscale wind climate is obtained by weighting the simulation results of each class with
its occurrence frequency. The frequency distribution of wind by direction sector and wind-speed
interval (i.e. a bivariate frequency distribution) is also established. This is a key input for
microscale modelling.
4) A series of microscale simulations are then performed to refine the mesoscale results further.
The microscale model computes a speed-up over hills. The input of the model includes data from
high-resolution surface properties (terrain elevation and land use) and bivariate frequency
distribution table established in step 3.
The global long term dataset used in WEST is the NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis (National Centers for
Environmental Prediction / National Center for Atmospheric Research, by Kalnay et al., 1996).
The mesoscale model is based on the Canadian Mesoscale Compressible Community Model
(Tanguay et al., 1990, Thomas et al., 1998) with the modification in the models initialization that
will be described in section 2.2. MsMicro (Walmsley et al., 1986) is used for microscale
modelling. The following sub-sections describe, in detail, the main components of WEST.
2.1 Classification scheme
The NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis is chosen to be the long term global dataset for time series
analysis due to its relatively uniform quality both in space and time, and its free access to the
public. The Reanalysis used in this study covers a period of 43 years (1958-2000) with a time
sampling of every 6 hours. The dataset is in a latitude-longitude grid (2.5 degrees of grid spacing)
at 17 pressure levels in vertical (from 1000 to 10 mb).
The parameters used for classifying large-scale weather situation depend on the application. For
wind energy study, only the wind within the first hundred metres AGL is of interest. In midlatitudes, it is mainly influenced by the pressure gradient, air stability, terrain shape (elevation and
orientation), and surface roughness. The geostrophic wind turns out to be the prime parameter,
since it is linked to the large-scale pressure gradient through the geostrophic balance in midlatitudes, and its vertical variation is related to the horizontal variation of potential temperature.
The atmospheric state is defined at 4 nominated near-surface heights above sea level (ASL): 0,
1500, 3000, and 5500 m, since only the near-surface wind is of interest. The respective
pressures at these heights will be approximately 1000, 850, 700 and 500 mb, so these values are
used as nominated pressures. The interpolation and extrapolation (called interpolation
hereafter) of meteorological parameters at the 4 nominated pressures (1000, 850, 700, 500 mb)
is done in two steps. Firstly, the pressure at the 4 nominated heights is obtained through
interpolation using a hydrostatic approximation. Secondly, the temperature and humidity at the
nominated pressures are then interpolated to the pressure values (obtained from the first step)
corresponding to the 4 nominated heights. The geostrophic wind is then calculated at the 4
nominated heights using the interpolated pressure, temperature, and humidity.

The weather situations (classes) are classified according to the associated geostrophic wind
direction and speed at 0 m ASL, and the vertical shear of wind speed between the sea level and
1500 m ASL. In Frank and Landberg (1997), a non-uniform speed interval is used in order to
keep the frequency of occurrence of each class appropriately equal. In WEST, however, a fixed
speed interval is used so that different regions (or mesoscale model domains) always have the
same preset classes with different frequency of occurrence. In this way, the simulation results
from different mesoscale model domains can be easily merged together seamlessly. This
ensures that WEST can be used to create a numerical wind atlas for area large than one
mesoscale model domain. This is one of the aspects that make WEST different from other similar
software. In this study, the geostrophic wind direction is classified into 16 sectors, and each
sector is divided into 14 speed classes (with class limits as: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 22, 26,
30, and > 34 m/s). The vertical shear of the geostrophic wind (or wind-speed difference between
1500 and 0 m ASL) is also considered in the classification scheme. Each class of a sector and
speed interval is then divided into two classes according to the sign (positive or negative) of
shear, except for the smallest wind speed interval. In this demonstration study, seasonal variation
is not considered in the classification scheme (although it can be important) in order to reduce
computation. There are a maximum of 432 possible classes.
2.2 Mesoscale model
The Canadian Mesoscale Compressible Community Model (MC2) is used for mesoscale
modelling within the WEST procedure. MC2 is a compressible non-hydrostatic limited area model
(Tanguay et al., 1990, Thomas et al., 1998, Girard et al., 2005). It was developed for mesoscale
modelling research and operational weather forecasting. Benoit et al. (2002) documented the
performance of MC2 in a real-time high-resolution forecast over complex terrain. This paper will
present only the changes made in the model to accommodate the downscaling procedure. As
discussed in section 2.1, the classification procedure gives the occurrence frequency of a class
(one vertical profile of meteorological parameters) for the entire mesoscale model domain. The
vertical profile is set at the centre of the model domain as an initial condition. The initial condition
for the rest of the grid points of the model is obtained by using a hydrostatic and geostrophic
approximation (discussed in the following paragraph). The model starts with this initial condition
and with the lateral boundary conditions kept constant in time; this contrasts with the usual NWP
application, in which the model is fed with three-dimensional meteorological data and with time
dependent lateral boundary conditions provided by the driving model.
The construction of three-dimensional meteorological data assumes hydrostatic and geostrophic
balance. Consequently, the three components of the momentum equation, in a conformal
projection of the spherical earth and with geometric-height as the coordinate, reduce to:

q
S
= fV K
X
X
q
S
RT
= fU K
Y
Y
q
RT
= g
z

(1)

RT

(2)
(3)

where R is the gas constant for dry air (287 J kg-1 K-1); T air temperature; q = ln(p) with p the air
pressure; f the Coriolis parameter ( f = 2 sin( ) with the angular velocity of the Earths
rotation, and the latitude); U and V the components of horizontal wind along X and Y; the
kinetic energy is K = (U2+V2) / 2; S the square of the map scale factor m; and g the gravitational
acceleration (taken as 9.8 m/s).

MC2 is built in generalized terrain-following height coordinates. However, In the WEST method,
model terrain heights are initially set at the sea level (or 0 m ASL). This setting simplifies the
construction of the three-dimensional initial conditions, since z = Z for terrain height at sea
level. During a first phase of the model integration, terrain heights are then increased at a preset
rate to eventually reach values characteristic of the region and suitable for the model resolution
considered. Thus, meteorological fields adjust dynamically to orographic forcing.
In the model, thermodynamic variables are decomposed into a basic state with perturbation
components, T = T* + T and q = q* + q. When this basic state, representing a stationary

isothermal atmosphere in hydrostatic equilibrium, q / z = g / RT

equations (1) (3), they become:

q'
S
R (T + T ')
= fV K
X
X
'
q
S
R (T * + T ' )
= fU K
Y
Y
'
'
q
T
R T* +T'
=g *
z
T
*

],

is subtracted from

(4)
(5)

(6)

Finally, new variables are defined: generalized pressure P = RT*q and buoyancy b = gT/T*. With
this change of variables, equations (4)-(6) become:

b P
S
)
= fV K
g X
X
b P
S
(1 + )
= fU K
g Y
Y
b P
(1 + )
=b
g z
(1 +

(7)
(8)
(9)

To initialize the model, vertical profiles of temperature and geostrophic wind (at 4 heights: 0,
1500, 3000, 5500 m ASL) corresponding to each class are set at the centre of the model domain.
They are interpolated to the model levels (28 levels) using a cubic interpolation up to 5500 m
ASL. Above this height, the profiles are kept constant. Using the temperature (buoyancy b)
profile at the centre of the domain, a generalized pressure P profile is calculated by numerically
integrating (9). The full distribution of pressure is then determined by numerically integrating
equations (7) and (8) in the X- and Y-direction respectively, between the domain centre and its
edges. Uniformity of the geostrophic wind maintained throughout. Finally, temperature profiles
away from the centre profile are obtained through iteration, using Eq. (9) again. We note here
that the temperature profiles after this step are no longer identical to the original profile obtained
from the classification, except at the centre. This is because it is impossible to maintain both
hydrostatic and geostrophic balances in the large numerical-model domain if both temperature
and geostrophic wind are uniformly distributed horizontally. The temperature profiles calculated
through iteration, though slightly different from the original one, offer the advantage of satisfying
the geostrophic balance in the model.
The geostrophic balance is a valid first-order approximation for the free atmosphere, but not in
the planetary boundary layer where the air flow is ageostrophic under the influence of friction
originating from the surface. The friction effects on the air flow are simulated in the model with
physics parameterisation, i.e. the detailed physical process is represented simply with model
resolved variables, e.g. wind, temperature, and surface roughness. However, in the nesting zone,

where grid values are from the preset constant lateral boundary conditions and no model
computation is applied, the friction effect is parameterized with a 40% reduction of geostrophic
wind speed and a derivation of the geostrophic wind direction by 40o to its left in the northern
hemisphere (facing downstream of the wind).
The three-dimensional atmospheric state is then established and ready for the model integration.
As mentioned earlier, there are no mountains (or their height is set to 0 m ASL) in the model at
time zero. The mountains start to grow at the first time step. The ground temperature is
adjusted to that of the air in immediate contact with the ground. When the mountains reach their
height corresponding to models resolution, the ground temperature is kept constant in time for
the model to reach easily the steady state of the atmosphere. For the same reason, radiation is
turned off in the model during the entire model integration period. However, sea/lake breeze and
mountain/valley circulation cannot be simulated with this setting. In this statistical-dynamical
downscaling procedure, the vertical profiles of meteorological parameters (wind, temperature and
humidity) are obtained by averaging the vertical profiles of all weather events classified in the
same class. This averaging process will result in an imbalance (or inconsistence) between
temperature and humidity profiles. Unrealistic condensation or evaporation can happen due to
this inconsistence. The latent heat due to water phase change can also prevent the model, for
some classes, from converging to its steady solution. The atmosphere is simply set to be dry (no
humidity) in this version of WEST, although the release of latent heat can affect the stability and
momentum transfer. We have compared the mean wind speed produced by WEST (without
humidity) with that produced with Monte Carlo method which is based on a set of MC2 forecasts
(with humidity) for randomly chosen dates. The difference in mean wind speed between these
two approaches (with and without humidity) is relatively small. Experiments for various regions
show that a six-hour physical simulation time is usually enough for most classes to reach a
steady state. In practice, a simulation of 9-hour duration is made for all the classes.

2.3 Statistical module

The simulated results for each class are weighted, with their occurrence frequency, to build a
database of statistics. This database includes characteristics of the mean properties of simulated
winds. As each mean is weighted by the frequency of geostrophic wind classes, it represents the
wind climate for the entire analyzed period (43 years). In this study, there are 28 vertical levels in
the model, unevenly distributed from the surface to 20 km ASL. To ensure a higher vertical
resolution in the boundary layer, 10 of the 28 levels are set within the first 1.5 km AGL. The
statistics can be calculated for any height in the surface region, by interpolating wind speed to the
target height from the model level closest to that height, with an assumption of a logarithmic
profile of surface wind (near neutral stability condition). We note here, however, this assumption
can result in non-negligible error for non-neutral stability conditions if the target height is far from
the model level used for interpolation. Further study is needed to develop more sophisticated
interpolation scheme by taking into account more parameters like air stability conditions, terrain
slop, etc.
All variables, available in the database, are identified in table 1. Included are mean values of wind
speed (EU in Table 1) and wind power (E1 in Table 1), and different frequency distributions with
respect to wind speed, direction and wind power classes. Note that the mean wind power
3
(0.5v ) is also called the kinetic energy flux density (Frank et al., 2001).
To generate categorical statistics, the wind speed, wind direction and wind power are classified
into different categories. There are 27 wind speed classes with an increment of 1 m/s between
the classes, except classes 0, 1 and 26. Class 0 denotes wind speeds between 0 and 0.2 m/s,
class 1 between 0.2 and 1 m/s, class 2 between 1 and 2 m/s, and finally class 26 wind speeds of
25 m/s and above. The frequency distribution of mean wind speed is retained in variable UH in
Table 1. Wind direction classes are referred to as sectors. There are 12 equiangular sectors,
centred at every 30o from 0o to 330o. Eight wind power classes are defined using the following

thresholds: 0, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 800 and 1000 W/m2. Class 1 indicates wind power
between 0 and 200 W/m2, class 2 between 200 and 300 W/m2, and finally class 8 - wind power
equal to or higher than 1000 W/m2. The eight cumulative frequency classes (EC in Table 1) are
defined for wind power equal or greater than a threshold value.
One needs to pay specific attention to three variables in Table 1: in Table 1) ERN, UR and UHR.
ERN is the frequency of distribution of wind direction, averaged over the point and its eight
closest neighbours on the grid; UR the mean wind speed distribution by direction, averaged over
the point and its eight closest neighbours on the grid; and UHR the bivariate frequency
distribution of mean wind speed and direction, averaged over the point and its eight neighbours
on the grid. They provide the input for the microscale model to predict wind at a higher-resolution.
The bivariate frequency distribution is a key input for the microscale model because it allows the
determination of mean wind speed and mean wind power from the microscale winds.

2.4 Coupling the microscale and mesoscale models

The theory of Jackson and Hunt (1975) provided a basis for numerical modelling two-dimensional
steady-state turbulent flow over a low hill. In their theory, the surface Rossby and Reynolds
numbers are assumed large enough for the wind profile in most part of boundary-layer to be
logarithmic. The air flow is separated into inner and outer regions. The governing momentum
equations are linearised using scale analysis and assuming uniform rough surface and small
slope. The inner flow is under the balance of perturbation stress, inertia stress and pressure
gradient, while the outer flow is characterized by a pressure gradient driven by irrotational and
invicid flow. Application of the theory to the wind energy study led to the development of two most
popular microscale modelling products: WAsP (Troen and Petersen, 1989) and MsMicro
(Walmsley et al. 1990). The later is used as the microscale modelling tool in WEST.
MsMicro has several development steps. It is based on Mason and Sykes model (1979), which is
an extension of the 2D-theory of Jackson and Hunt to three-dimensional topography. Walmsley
et al. (1982) introduced a height-dependent pressure forcing and made a first application of
MsMicro to real terrain. Variable roughness was later implemented by Walmsley et al. (1986).
Their results compare reasonably well with the in situ observations for small slope (<0.3) terrain.
Note that error can be large over a steep terrain, and particularly if flow separation occurs.
2
In the context of WEST, a mesoscale domain (about 875x875 km ) is decomposed into
hundreds, or even thousands overlapped sub-domains (or tiles) depending on the resolution of
MsMicro used for the application. The tiles are spread along the mesoscale grid, with their
centres co-locating with the corresponding mesoscale grid point (Fig. 2). The inputs to MsMicro
are prepared cautiously to avoid double accounting of effects, e.g. speed-up over hills. The
perturbation of the terrain (i.e. the difference between terrain elevation at micro-model and mesomodel resolution) is used as terrain elevation in the microscale. Usually, the perturbed terrain has
a slope smaller than that of the real mountain at microscale models resolution. This will reduce
the model error over steep terrain. We note, however, the opposite can also happen, i.e. the
perturbed terrain will have greater slope if the slope at microscale resolution is opposite to the
general slope at mesoscale resolution. This may result in errors in microscale model due to the
poor modelling of these steeper slopes. Further study is needed to better address this issue. For
the same reason, the upstream roughness-length used in the meso-model is also taken into
account in the micro-model simulation. The bivariate frequency distribution (variable UHR in
Table 1) of mean wind speed from the statistic module is also a key input to MsMicro. Since UHR
is available at different vertical heights according to the statistic module, the height of which UHR
is chosen for the input to the microscale should be higher than the target height. With these
inputs, MsMicro is run for each individual microscale domain. The final results of mean wind
speed and wind power density are merged together with a space-weighted function.

3 APPLICATION OF WEST

WEST has been applied to the Gasp Region, in the Quebec province. The NCEP/NCAR Global
Reanalysis (43 years of data from 1958 to 2000) is used for weather classification. In total, 366
classes are determined for this Region. Figure 3 shows the frequency distribution of the
geostrophic wind (GW) as function of speed (top panel), and as function of wind direction sectors
(bottom panel). The frequency curve of GW follows approximately a Weibull distribution. Note
that the second peak (Fig 3a) centred at 20 m/s is an artefact, due to a change in the wind speed
interval from 2 to 4 m/s for GW larger than 18 m/s. The mean GW for that region is about 10.6
m/s, indicated by the dotted line. The prevailing winds over the Gasp Region are the Westerlies,
as shown in Fig 3b.
MC2 was set up at a grid spacing of 5 km covering Gasp Region (Figure 4). There are 175 x
175 grid-points and 28 vertical levels non-uniformly distributed from the surface to 20 km ASL
(with 10 levels within the first 1.5 km). The first wind level is about 50 m AGL. The terrain
information (elevation, land use, etc.) used in mesoscale simulations is from USGS 1-km
database. MC2s parameter settings are listed in Table 2. Typical wall clock time for this size of
domain is about 2.5 hours per simulation on a Pentium-4 2.4 GHz. The simulation for all the 366
classes requires about one month using a single PC, or 4 days by using 10 similar PCs.
A total of 24336 microscale model domains were set up with an overlap ratio of 0.6 to cover the
2
entire mesoscale model domain (about 608400 km ) at a resolution of about 200 m. The terrain
elevation is from Canadian Digital Elevation Data (CDED) in 1:250k, while the land use is still
from the 1-km resolution USGS database due to the lack of high resolution data. MsMicros
parameter settings are listed in Table 2. For the size of domain (128x128 grid points) listed in the
table, it takes about 2 second for a Pentium-4 PC to do one simulation, and 14 hours (or 1.4
hours for 10 PCs) for all the 24336 simulations.

4 WIND MEASUREMENTS AND MODEL VALIDATION

The measured wind speed data used for the comparison are from 29 out of 44 stations that were
offered by the Ministre des Ressources Naturelles du Qubec for the study in the Gasp
Region. The 29 stations were located as shown in Figure 4 which is centred on the St Laurence
River. Most of the stations were located near the shoreline of the Gasp Peninsula. The block
colours on the map represent wind speeds (m/s) at 40 m AGL from simulations with both mesoand micro-components of WEST (WEST hereafter), while the black contours are the wind speeds
from the meso-component only (MC2 hereafter). The contouring of wind speed is similar for both
WEST and MC2 modelling, but more detail can be seen in the WEST simulations. The greater
variability of wind speed in WEST simulations is closely linked to the enhancement of the
resolution of surface properties in the model. It is apparent from this map that the faster wind
speeds are over inland water away from land, over coastal land or at the top of hills, as shown in
the upper left corner of the map.
Better detail of the high-resolution simulation are in Figure 5, which shows a zoom-in of the
areas with labels (A, B, C, D) in Figure 4. In general, the MC2 produces a relatively smooth wind
speed distribution (in contours), while WEST gives more details (in colour shadings) due to the
higher-resolution of the terrain for the simulation grid. In Figs 5A, both MC2 (contours) and WEST
(colours shading) wind speeds compare well with the observation (numbers printed in black), but
their spatial distribution is quite different. The MC2s contours are almost parallel to the shoreline
(blue line) while WESTs results are perpendicular to it. WEST at a horizontal resolution of about
200 m simulated well the deceleration/speed-up of narrow valleys/ridges (width < 1 km) which
are more or less perpendicular to the shoreline. The valleys/ridges of this size are completely
smoothed out in a grid spacing of 5 km as in MC2 model.
WESTs skill in capturing the speed-up over small hills is shown in Figs. 5B, C, and D. Fig 5B
shows an area with 5 observation masts. Three masts which recorded a mean wind speed of 7,

6.3, 7.2 m/s are located close to the shoreline (blue line). Both MC2s and WESTs winds are
comparable to the observations of these three masts. A close look at the terrain elevation data
(not shown) reveals that the perturbed terrain is about -20 m and with small slope. In other words,
the terrain at microscale resolution is about 20 m lower than that at mesoscale resolution, but
both terrains have almost the same slope. MC2 simulated well the winds in this area. The
microscale model didnt produce a significant speed-up with respect to mesoscale model MC2
due to small slope in the perturbed terrain that was used in microscale modelling. For the mast
recording a mean wind speed of 5.8 m/s, both MC2 and WEST produced well the mean wind
speed, again due to relatively small slope of the perturbed terrain. It is interesting to investigate
the terrain near the mast which recorded a mean wind speed of 7.1 m/s. This mast is located on
the top of a hill with a nominal diameter of less than 2 km. The height of the hill (with respect to its
base) is respectively 30 m in mesoscale resolution (a slope of 30m/1km = 3%), and ~150 m in
the perturbed terrain at microscale resolution (a slope of 15%). MC2 underestimated the mean
wind speed by 1.1 m/s (6 versus 7.1 m/s in the observation). WEST (with both meso- and microcomponents) reproduced the speed-up over the hill, but with a overshot of 0.7 m/s (7.8 versus
7.1 m/s in the observation).
In Fig 5C, there are two masts: one located near the shoreline and another on top of a small hill.
Both MC2 and WEST reproduce well the observed mean wind speed (7.5 m/s) for the mast near
shoreline due to relatively simple terrain and land cover. The slope in mesoscale terrain near the
hill where a mast is located is about 1%, while the directional slope in the perturbed terrain at
microscale resolution is in the range of 3 to 13%. MC2 underestimated the mean wind speed by
1.4 m/s (5.5 versus 6.9 m/s in the observation). WEST simulated the speed-up over the hill, but
still underestimated the mean wind speed by 0.8 m/s (6.1 versus 6.9 in the observation). A higher
model resolution might be needed in this complex terrain.
Fig 5D shows another area with very complex terrain, i.e. a cluster of irregular steep hills. The
mast is located near the top of a hill. The terrain in MC2 mesoscale model is almost flat due to
the unresolved valleys. The directional slope near the mast at microscale resolution is in the
range of 10 to 30%. MC2 underestimated the mean wind speed by 3.2 m/s (5.9 versus 9.1 m/s in
the observation). WEST simulated the speed-up over the hill, but still underestimated it by 1.4
m/s (7.7 versus 9.1 m/s). This comparison exercise demonstrated that the more complex the
terrain is, the higher the models resolution is needed.
Of the 44 stations, the stations rejected in this study had either too short a monitoring period, in
some cases only 0.4 years, had missing data at 40 m AGL, or were outside the domain range.
The period of measurements for the 29 stations that are used here averages about 1.2 years.
The shortest period is 0.8 y and the longest is 2.4 y. The wind data at these stations were
sampled every second and averaged at 10-minute intervals. Errors due to periodic variability from
the long-term mean wind speed are considered here because of the short measurement periods.
For all of these stations, the long-term mean is unknown and so two nearby long-term stations
are analyzed for such periodic variability. The Atlantic Wind Test Site (AWTS) is located at the
north end of Prince Edward Island and is about 210 km south of the town of Gasp, as indicated
with a star symbol (*) in Fig. 4.. The tower at the AWTS is 50 m AGL, the data were collected on
10-minute intervals and averaged to monthly means spanning 17 years. The 17-year mean wind
for this station was 8.3 m/s. The Caribou upper-air station (indicated with a star symbol in Fig. 4.)
at 191 m ASL, is located 180 km south of Rimouski and 310 km west of the AWTS. This station
measured wind speeds every 12 hours and the height of measurements varied with each
radiosonde release but typically, one of the first few wind measurements occurred at around 300
m ASL. Each radiosonde profile was interpolated to 100-m intervals. Compared to other heights
at the Caribou station the monthly mean wind speeds at 800 m ASL (610 m AGL), produced the
best correlation (R = 0.92) with those of the AWTS over the 1988-2000 measurement period. At
this elevation the long-term mean wind speed was 10 m/s for the 1958-2000 period and 10.2 m/s
for the 1988-2000 period.

Fig 6 depicts the 1st and 99th percentile variation of mean wind speed from the moving average of
seven different period lengths, taken from the long-term mean of the two stations. The graph
shows a decreasing variability from long-term mean as the measurement period is increased.
Generally, the one-month means vary by about 34% (1st and 99th percentile) from long-term and
reduce to 8% or less for periods of one year and longer. The 17-year analysis of the Caribou
station compares relatively well with those of the AWTS station for the periods six months and
longer; both have variability errors of about 7% at one year, increase slightly at 1.5 year, and
then decrease to below 2% at five years. The 43-year variability at Caribou is slightly larger than
the 17-year analysis showing a variation of 3% at five years. The variability errors for the
Caribou 43-years analysis are shown as the thick black lines with labels in Figure 6 and are used
to calculate the error in the measurements at each of the Gasp stations. No other errors are
considered in this analysis.
The simulation results as produced by WEST are compared to the observed wind speeds and
are shown in the scatter plot of Figure 7. The horizontal error bars are derived from interpolating
the period variability of the Caribou station in relation to the monitoring lengths of each of the 29
stations. The error bars show that the measured mean wind speed of each station could vary, on
average, as much as 0.7 m/s from their long-term mean. Thirteen of the stations in the WEST
simulation fall within the possibility of conforming with the measured wind speeds. In other words,
the difference between the WEST results (averaged over 43 years) and observations (averaged
over 0.8 2.4 years) is within the range of uncertainties in short term observations due to
periodic variability from long-term mean wind speed in the region.
The mean of the 29 observed wind speeds is 6.6 m/s whereas the MC2-only simulation results in
a mean of 6.1 m/s. The mean absolute difference between the observed and the MC2 winds is
0.83 m/s and the mean difference is 0.47 m/s. The correlation coefficient of the mean wind
speeds between the observations and MC2 is R = 0.5. The WEST simulation produces better
results, with a mean wind speed of 6.4 m/s, a mean absolute difference of 0.69 m/s, and a mean
difference of 0.15 m/s. The correlation coefficient of the mean wind speeds between the
observations and WEST is R = 0.7, and so is considerably improved compared with the MC2only simulation. The improvement of simulations by WEST over MC2 is mainly due to the
enhanced resolution, i.e. of surface properties, terrain height and land use. The improvement is
particularly noticeable in the coastal regions.

5 CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSIONS ON FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS

This paper has documented the WEST wind simulation method, and provides a demonstrationrun for the wind regime over Gasp, a region of Quebec, Canada. The results compare well with
the meteorological mast measurements. The absolute mean difference in mean wind speed is
0.83 m/s with the meso-component alone, and 0.69 m/s with both meso- and micro-components.
The correlation coefficient of the mean wind speed is also improved from 0.5 with mesocomponent only, to 0.7 with both meso- and micro-components. WEST was also used to create
the Canadian Wind Atlas at a resolution of 5 km (with meso-component only), the first digital atlas
for such a large country. The atlas is accessible in both graphical and digital format at
www.windatlas.ca.
WEST is designed for use in research and industry; it requires modest computation facility. For
instance, a high quality map of long-term (~50 years) wind climatology for an area of 875 x 875
2
km at a resolution of hundreds of metres can be established in about one month with a standalone PC (Pentium-4, CPU 2.4GHz with 1 GB RAM), or in about 4 days with 10 similar PCs. The
WEST code is ported to the Windows operating system. The Window based version of WEST is
licensed for commercial applications. Users can run it with a single Windows PC, or dispatch the
simulations to a pool of PCs (Windows or Linux) through the frontal Windows PC to shorten the
simulation time. Since the most intensive computation is in meso-component of WEST and has
been completed for the Canadian territory, users can download the output of this meso-

component at the atlas web site and feed it directly into the micro-component of WEST. In this
way, users can produce a wind map for an area of about 875 x 875 km2 at a resolution of ~ 100
m within a day.
In this study, the classification of weather situations is done at 4 heights (0, 1500, 3000, and 5500
m ASL). This implies an extrapolation of global climate data over land towards sea level. Errors
can be large in highland and mountainous areas, such as the Rocky Mountains. Classification
with the average terrain height as the surface level may be an alternative method to minimize the
errors.
MC2 has a varying topography capability in the first integration hours, i.e the topography varies
from coarse resolution (at time zero) to the models resolution in about one hour. In WEST, the
coarse resolution terrain is set to 0 m ASL (i.e no terrain). This creates too large a slope in the
nesting zone, and affects the models solution inside of the model domain. In future application,
an averaged terrain height (say, smoothed over 8 neighbouring grid-points) can be used as
coarse resolution topography to initialize MC2.
Surface heat flux is turned off (by keeping the ground temperature the same as that of air in
immediate contact) in this version of WEST to ensure a final steady solution in mesoscale
modelling. This simplification prevents the model from simulating the thermo-circulation, e.g.
lake/land breeze. Further study is needed to include more physical parameterisations in the
mesoscale modelling.
In WEST, the mesoscale model MC2 is initiated with a single vertical profile of geostrophic wind
and temperature. A constant of geostrophic wind (or pressure gradient) is then applied to the
models horizontal domain, implying an assumption of constant slope of pressure surface. This
assumption is valid only over a limited area. Further study is needed to address the sensibility of
the results to the mesoscale model domain. No specific consideration on the topographic
features has been taken when setting up a model domain in this study. In MC2, a nesting (or
blending) zone is set up to allow a smooth transition of coarse resolution terrain and other model
variables from lateral boundaries to the inner modelling domain. The lateral boundary conditions
mix with the models solutions within the first 5 points (or lines) by using a weighting function
th
which varies from 1 at the lateral boundaries to 0 at the 5 point (or line). The coarse resolution
mountains (in fact, no mountains at coarse resolution, or mountains with altitude of 0 m ASL) then
mix gradually with the mesoscale resolution mountains (5 km in this application) from 5th point (or
line) to 13th point (or line) by using a similar weighting function. In practice, we drop additional 8
points (or lines) in order to avoid contamination of lateral boundary conditions and coarse
resolution terrain. A zone of 21 points (and lines) of the mesoscale model domain has already
been excluded in the study, e.g. in Fig 4. Further study is needed to find out an optimal model
domain setting in consideration of terrain features.
The approach used in WEST is to simulate the mesoscale response of large scale forcing under
influence of terrain (elevation and land use) in case of mesoscale modelling, and then the
microscale response of mesoscale forcing under influence of higher resolution terrain in case of
microscale modelling. The bivariate frequency distributions used as input to the microscale model
come from statistics of mesoscale modelling. This is another aspect that makes WEST different
from the other microscale modelling software. Currently, most microscale simulations use the
bivariate frequency distributions based on the analysis of surface observations, instead of the
statistics from mesoscale modelling. It is important, in the future study, to quantify the difference
of these two different approaches.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This Research project was initiated and supported by Panel for Energy Research and
Development (PERD) funds. The special observation data used for the validation were offered by
the Ministre des Ressources Naturelles du Qubec. Mrs. S. Chamberland and M. Desgagn are

10

thanked for their support for MC2 modelling. Mr. M. Valin is thanked for his valuable advice on
informatics.
REFERENCES
Benoit, R., C. Schar, P. Binder, S. Chamberland, H.C. Davies, M. Desgagn, C. Girard, C. Keil,
N. Kouwen, D. Luthi, D. Maric, E. Muller, P. Pellerin, J. Schmidli, F. Schubiger, C.
Schwierz, M. Sprenger, A. Walser, S. Willemse, W. Yu, and E. Zala, 2002: The Real-Time
Ultrafinescale Forecast Support during the Special Observation Period of the MAP, Bull.
Amer. Meteor. Soc., 81, 2953-2962.
Frank, H.P. and L. Landberg, 1997: Modelling the Wind Climate of Ireland, Boundary-Layer
Meteorol. 85, 359-378.
Frank, H.P., O. Rathmann, N.G. Mortensen, and L. Landberg, 2001: The Numerical Wind Atlas
The KAMM/WAsP method, Riso-R-1252(EN), Published by Riso National Laboratory,
Roskilde, Denmark.
Frey-Buness, A., D. Heimann, and R. Sausen, 1995: A statistical-dynamical downscaling
procedure for global climate simulation. Thoer. Appl. Climatol. 50, 117-131.
Girard, C., R. Benoit and M. Desgagn, 2005: Finescale Topography and the MC2 Dynamics
Kernel, Mon. Wea. Rew., Vol. 133, 6, 1463-1477.
Jackson, P.S. and J.C.R. Hunt, 1975: Turbulent Flow Over a Low Hill, Quart. J. Roy. Meteorol.
Soc. 101, 929-955.
Kalnay, E, M. Kanamitsu, R. Kistler, W. Collins, D. Deaven, L. Gandin, M. Iredell, S. Saha, G.
White, J. Woollen, Y. Zhu, A. Leetmaa, B. Reynolds, M. Chelliah, W. Ebisuzaki, W.
Higgins, J. Janowiak, K.C. Mo, C. Ropelewski, J. Wang, Roy Jenne and Dennis Joseph,
1996: The NCEP/NCAR 40-Year Reanalysis Project., Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., Vol. 77,
No. 3, 1996, pp. 437-471.
Mason, P.J. and R.I. Sykes, 1979: Flow Over an Isolated Hill of Moderate Slope, Quart. J. Roy.
Meteorol. Soc., 105, 383-395.
Tanguay, M., A. Robert, and R. Laprise, 1990: A semi-implicit semi-Lagrangian fully compressible
regional forecast model, Mon. Wea. Rev. 118, 1970-1980.
Thomas, S., C. Girard, R. Benoit, M. Desgagn, and P. Pellerin, 1998: A new adiabatic kernel for
the MC2 model. Atmos.-Ocean, 36, 241-270.
Troen, I. and E.L. Petersen, 1989: European Wind Atlas. Published by Riso National Laboratory,
Roskilde, Denmark, ISBN 87-550-1482-8. 656p.
Walmsley, J.L., J.R. Salmon, and P.A. Taylor, 1982: On the Application of a Model of BoundaryLayer Flow Over low hills to Real Terrain, Boundary-Layer Meteorol. 23, 17-46.
Walmsley, J.L., P.A. Taylor, and T. Keith, 1986: A Simple Model of Neutrally Stratified BoundaryLayer Flow Over Complex Terrain with Surface Roughness Modulations (MS3DJH/3R),
Boundary-Layer Meteorol. 36, 157-186.
Walmsley, J.L., I.B. Troen, D.P. Lalas, and P.J. Mason, 1990: Surface-Layer Flow in Complex
Terrain: Comparison of Models and Full-Scale Observations, Boundary-Layer Meteorol.
52, 259-281.

11

List of Figures
Figure 1: WEST flowchart. The climate database is NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis. The terrain
elevation and land use are from USGS database. WEST includes four major modules:
classification scheme, mesoscale model (MC2), statistic module, and microscale
model (MsMicro).
Figure 2: Schematic illustration of overlapped microscale model domains within a mesoscale
domain. Plotted are 9 mesosale model grid points (in crosses) co-locating with the
centre of microscale model domains in black frame (only 5 of the 9 domains are
plotted). The contours are the terrain elevation with continuous transition from one
domain to another.
Figure 3: (a) Wind speed frequency distribution of the geostrophic wind (GW). Note: the second
peak, centred at 20 m/s, is an artefact, due to a change in the wind speed interval
from 2 to 4 m/s for GW larger than 18 m/s. The mean GW speed is about 10.6 m/s
(dotted line). (b) Wind direction distribution for the Gasp Region; the prevailing winds
are the Westerlies.
Figure 4: Mean wind speed produced with WEST, as plotted by colour shading. The black
contour lines are with MC2 alone. The observed wind speed from the 29 stations is
also printed in black numbers, with black dots symbols indicating the respective
station locations. The black frames labelled with letters A, B, C, D indicate the areas in
which detail map is plotted in Figure 5. Shorelines are plotted in blue lines. Note that
the sharp change in the colour shading near Caribou station (in a shape of 7) is due
to the lack of high resolution terrain data along Canada-USA border..
Figure 5: Same as Figure 4, but showing selected areas (labelled A, B, C, D in Fig 4.) of the
domain in more detail. Station locations are indicated with open circles
st
th
Figure 6: This graph shows the 1 and 99 percentile variation of mean wind speed, compared
with the moving average of seven different period lengths from the long-term mean of
the two stations. The thick black line with the labels is a 43-year analysis while the thin
line is a 17-year analysis of the Caribou station. The Caribou station is an upper air
station located in Maine approximately 180 km south of Rimouski. The wind data are
interpolated at 800 m ASL (610 m AGL). The thick grey line is the 17-year analysis of
AWTS station and is shown to have similar period variation as those of Caribou
station. The AWTS station is from a 50-m tower located about 210 km south of
Gasp, on the northwest tip of Prince Edward Island and 310 km east of the Caribou
station.
Figure 7: A scatter graph, comparing the WEST results to the wind station measurements (m/s)
in the Gasp Region. The length of each horizontal error bar is a correlation between
the lengths of each stations monitoring period and the variability error extrapolated
from Figure 6. The error bars point out the possibility that the short term
measurements are subject to vary from the 43-year mean for which the WEST
simulations represent.

12

Global
Climate
Database

WEST FLOWCHART

E.g. NCEP
Reanalysis

DEM &
Land-use
Classification
Schemes

Meteo
Database

GENGEO

Setup
initialization

Terrain
Database

MC2

Statistic
Module

Setup

Mesoscale
Wind climate

MS Micro

Terrain
Database

Statistic
Module

Mesoscale
wind
atlas

Microscale
Wind climate
Figure 1: WEST flowchart. The climate database is the NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis. The terrain
elevation and land use are from the USGS database. WEST includes four major modules:
classification scheme, mesoscale model (MC2), statistic module, and microscale model
(MsMicro).

13

Figure 2: Schematic illustration of overlapped microscale model domains within a mesoscale

domain. Plotted are 9 mesoscale model grid-points (in crosses) co-locating with the centre of
microscale model domains in black frame (only 5 of the 9 domains are plotted). The contours are
the terrain elevation with continuous transition from one domain to another.

14

Figure 3: (a) Wind speed frequency distribution of the geostrophic wind (GW). Note: the second
peak, centred at 20 m/s, is an artefact, due to a change in the wind speed interval from 2 to 4 m/s
for GW larger than 18 m/s. The mean GW speed is about 10.6 m/s (dotted line). (b) Wind
direction distribution for the Gasp Region; the prevailing winds are the Westerlies.

15

Figure 4: Mean wind speed produced with WEST, as plotted by colour shading. The black
contour lines are with MC2 alone. The observed wind speed from the 29 stations is also printed
in black numbers, with black dots symbols indicating the respective station locations. The black
frames labelled with letters A, B, C, D indicate the areas in which detail map is plotted in Figure 5.
Shorelines are plotted in blue lines. Note that the sharp change in the colour shading near
Caribou station (in a shape of 7) is due to the lack of high resolution terrain data along CanadaUSA border.

16

Figure 5: Same as Figure 4, but showing selected areas (labelled A, B, C, D in Fig 4.) of the
domain in more detail. Station locations are indicated with open circles.

17

Variation of period mean wind speed from long-term mean versus

measurement period length
50%

Variation from long-term mean wind speed

40%

AWTS 17 years low

AWTS 17 years high
Caribou 43 years low

34%

Caribou 43 years high

30%

Caribou 17 years low

Caribou 17 years high

19%

20%
8%

7%

10%

5%

3%

3%

-4%

-4%

-3%

Two years

Three
years

Five years

0%
-10%
-20%

-6%

-7%

One year

1.5 year

-16%

-30%
-30%

-40%
One month Six month

Figure 6: This graph shows the 1st and 99th percentile variation of mean wind speed, compared
with the moving average of seven different period lengths from the long-term mean of the two
stations. The thick black line with the labels is a 43-year analysis while the thin line is a 17-year
analysis of the Caribou station. The Caribou station is an upper air station located in Maine
approximately 180 km south of Rimouski. The wind data are interpolated at 800 m ASL (610 m
AGL). The thick grey line is the 17-year analysis of AWTS station and is shown to have similar
period variation as those of Caribou station. The AWTS station is from a 50-m tower located
about 210 km south of Gasp, on the northwest tip of Prince Edward Island and 310 km east of
the Caribou station.

18

Comparison of MC2 to Gaspe at 40 m AGL

10

WEST

4
4

10

Measurements

Figure 7: A scatter graph, comparing the WEST results to the wind station measurements (m/s)
in the Gasp Region. The length of each horizontal error bar is a correlation between the lengths
of each stations monitoring period and the variability error extrapolated from Figure 6. The error
bars point out the possibility that the short term measurements are subject to vary from the 43year mean for which the WEST simulations represent.

19

List of Tables
Table 1: Variables calculated with the statistic module
Table 2: Model parameters for both MC2 and MsMicro

20

Table 1: Variables calculated with the statistic module

Variable

Definition

EU (m/s)

Mean wind speed

EU2 (m/s)

Standard deviation of mean wind speed

UH (%)

Frequency distribution of mean wind speed

ER (%)

Frequency distribution of mean wind direction

------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Frequency distribution of mean wind direction, averaged over the point and its
eight closest neighbours on the grid

ERN (%)
UHR (%)

Bivariate frequency distribution of mean wind speed and direction, averaged over
the point and its eight closest neighbours on the grid

UR (m/s)

Mean wind speed distribution by direction, averaged over the point and its eight
closest neighbours on the grid

------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UU (knots)

Mean wind along x axis

VV (knots)
.

Mean wind along y axis

..

E1 (W/m2)

Mean wind power

E2 (W/m2)

Standard deviation of mean wind power

EH (%)

Frequency distribution of mean wind power

EC (%)

Cumulative frequency distribution of mean wind power

21

Table 2: Model parameters for both MC2 and MsMicro

MC2
Parameters
Grd_dx
(Grd_ni) x (Grd_nj)
Grdt
htop
Gnk
gnnpbl
vmh_ndt

Description
Horizontal resolution (m)
Horizontal grid points
Time-step (seconds)
Height of model lid (m)
Number of vertical levels
Number of levels in boundary layer (< 1500 m AGL)
Number of time steps during which mountains grow

Value
5 000
175 x 175
120
20 000
28
10
29

MsMicro
Parameters
Alpha
Sigma
Nu
Delta

Description
Stride on the coupled mesoscale model grid
Overlap ration between 2 micro-domains
Grid points along X
Grid spacing of the coupled mesoscale model (m)

Value
1
0.6
128
5000

22