Improved representation of terrain’s impact on surface wind speed
Accurate calculation of near surface (0 – 100m above ground level) meteorological variables, such as wind speed, are still difficult for computational atmospheric physics models, including numerical weather prediction (NWP) models which provide the world’s weather forecasts.
A recent paper in Earth and Space Science details a new method, developed by Siddhant Srivastava (MASc, 2026) and Professor Schell, to better calculate wind speed, through the improved representation of aerodynamic roughness length within NWP models. This method is shown to more accurately calculate near surface wind speed, which has implications for advancing wind power forecasting.
