On the polarimetric backscatter by a still or quasi-still wind turbine

Abstract

Abstract. Wind turbines negatively affect the performance of weather radars, especially when located in the proximity of a radar site. In March 2019, MeteoSwiss performed a measurement campaign by deploying a mobile X-band radar in Schaffhausen. It proved to be useful for mapping and characterizing the maximum power returns by three wind turbines observed using standard scanning strategies. In March 2020, the campaign was repeated using a more sophisticated scan strategy: ∼ 100 min special sessions of fixed pointing an antenna towards the nacelle of the closest wind turbine (WT) located within a range of 7766 m from the radar, interleaved every 2 h by a scanning protocol identical to that of the March 2019 campaign. Polarimetric radar signatures were derived every 64 ms using 128 radar pulses transmitted every 0.5 ms (pulse repetition frequency (PRF) = 2000 Hz). A thorough overview of the polarimetric signatures of the WT in still or quasi-still conditions has been obtained based on 30 000 polarimetric measurables acquired over 32 min on the first day of the campaign (4 March 2020). During the first 2 min with zero rotor speed, the co-polar correlation coefficient between the orthogonal polarization states, ρHV, was persistently equal to 1, similarly to the signature of a bright scatterer observed by a non-rotating antenna. The changes between two consecutive values of the differential reflectivity and radar reflectivity factor were either 0 dBz or ±0.5 dBz. Due to the absence of precipitation, one could assume that the standard deviation of the differential phase shift, which was as small as 3.0∘, can be entirely attributed to the variability of the differential backscattering phase shift. There were two 10 min periods during which the rotor moved less than 1 revolution. It is worth noting that this slow movement could be associated with a change in the blade pitch angle and the nacelle orientation, which caused extreme changes in the radar reflectivity factor. For instance, two pairs of 64 ms consecutive values reached 78.5 dBz, which is the absolute maximum reached in the whole campaign (4–21 March 2020).