Simulating impacts of real-world wind farms on land surface temperature using the WRF Model: Validation with observations

The simulated wind farm impacts are compared with the observations from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the first Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP) field campaign. Simulations are performed over west-central Texas for the month of July throughout 7 years (2003-04 and 2010-14).

Two groups of experiments are conducted: 1) direct validations of the simulated LST changes between the preturbine period (2003-04) and postturbine period (2010-14) validated against the MODIS observations; and 2) a model sensitivity test of LST to the wind turbine parameterization by examining LST differences with and without the wind turbines for the postturbine period. Overall, the WRF Model is moderately successful at reproducing the observed spatiotemporal variations of the background LST but has difficulties in reproducing such variations for the turbine-induced LST change signals at pixel levels.