Climatology of Near‐Surface Daily Peak Wind Gusts Across Scandinavia: Observations and Model Simulations

Abstract

An observed daily peak wind gusts (DPWG) dataset over Scandinavia, consisting of time series from 127 meteorological stations across Finland, Norway and Sweden, has been created. This dataset provides high‐quality and homogenized near‐surface DPWG series for Scandinavia, spanning the longest available time period (1996–2016). The aim of this study is to evaluate the ability of two regional climate models (RCMs) in simulating DPWG winds. According to the observed DPWG climatology, meteorological stations are classified into three regions for which wind conditions are influenced by similar physical processes: coast, inland and mountain. Smaller‐scale DPWG features of the three regions are only captured when coarser general circulation models or reanalyses are downscaled by a RCM. Dynamic downscaling is thus needed to achieve more realistic simulations of DPWG when compared to their driving models. The performances of the RCMs are found to be more dependent on model dynamics and physics (such as gust parametrization) than on the boundary conditions provided by the driving models. We also found that the RCMs cannot accurately simulate observed DPWG in inland and mountainous areas, suggesting the need for higher horizontal resolution and/or better representation of relevant boundary‐layer processes.

Wind stilling‐reversal across Sweden: The impact of land‐use and large‐scale atmospheric circulation changes

“…This study uses Climatol (Guijarro, 2017) to perform homogenization and missing data infilling on the raw 100 DAWS and DPWG series. A detailed description of the homogenization approach adopted in this study can be found in Azorin-Molina et al (2016), and Minola et al (2021).…”

“…In 1996, SMHI started to install automatic weather stations across the country (Wern and Bärring, 2009), and it is only since then that hourly WS measurements were systematically recorded and hourly WG observations became available (Minola et al ., 2021). Thus, using hourly observations, daily wind series are prepared for the longest available time period of 1996–2019.…”

“…; Azorin‐Molina et al ., 2014). More importantly, systematic measurements of extreme winds are often lacking or available only in the last few decades (Minola et al ., 2021). For example, in Sweden, widespread gust wind measurements were recorded only since the end of the 1990s and no study before has been able to evaluate changes in observed wind gusts in this region.…”

Wind Gust Parameters in the Lower Troposphere Based on Doppler Lidar Data

“…With the increasing availability of radar and wind tower data in recent years, many studies have focused on the statistical characteristics of surface gusts, such as climatic and seasonal variations in wind gusts (Azorin‐Molina et al., 2016; H. Guo et al., 2011; McVicar et al., 2012), numerical simulation of near‐surface gusts (Jung & Schindler, 2015, 2016; Minola et al., 2021), and the impact of complex terrain (Letson et al., 2019; Tieleman, 1992). However, many studies focus on near‐surface gust characteristics, and the characteristics of gusts hundreds of meters above the ground are still poorly understood (Belu & Koracin, 2013; Kahl et al., 2021; Suomi et al., 2017).…”