An assessment of a three-beam Doppler lidar wind profiling method for use in urban areas

Lane, S. E., Barlow, J. F. and Wood, C. R. (2013) An assessment of a three-beam Doppler lidar wind profiling method for use in urban areas. Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics, 119. pp. 53-59. ISSN 0167-6105 doi: 10.1016/j.jweia.2013.05.010

Abstract/Summary

Currently there are few observations of the urban wind field at heights other than rooftop level. Remote sensing instruments such as Doppler lidars provide wind speed data at many heights, which would be useful in determining wind loadings of tall buildings, and predicting local air quality. Studies comparing remote sensing with traditional anemometers carried out in flat, homogeneous terrain often use scan patterns which take several minutes. In an urban context the flow changes quickly in space and time, so faster scans are required to ensure little change in the flow over the scan period. We compare 3993 h of wind speed data collected using a three-beam Doppler lidar wind profiling method with data from a sonic anemometer (190 m). Both instruments are located in central London, UK; a highly built-up area. Based on wind profile measurements every 2 min, the uncertainty in the hourly mean wind speed due to the sampling frequency is 0.05–0.11 m s−1. The lidar tended to overestimate the wind speed by ≈0.5 m s−1 for wind speeds below 20 m s−1. Accuracy may be improved by increasing the scanning frequency of the lidar. This method is considered suitable for use in urban areas.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/33064
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology
Publisher	Elsevier
Download/View statistics	View download statistics for this item