1. Progress report (April 2016 – March 2017) WP2
Progress report (April 2016 – March 2017) WP2.1 Mesoscale Modeling - UCT

2. Completed activities for the months April 2016 to March 2017:
WP Regional model setup and climate sensitivity studies
The WRF model has been updated to the latest version (V3.7.1) and modifications made for the production of a wind atlas. The model has also been installed at the CSIR Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) and test runs have been developed and executed.
Revised WRF setup covering remaining areas of Eastern Cape, KwaZulu Natal and parts of the Free State Provinces completed.
Further compute and storage nodes have been added to the CSAG cluster. Although there is no budget for this type of equipment within WASA2 the CSAG hardware will be made available to the project for the mesoscale modelling component.
Climate sensitivity studies are ongoing from 2016/2017 into 2017/2018 financial years.

3. Completed activities for the months April 2016 to March 2017:
WP Mesoscale and local scale process studies
The paper submitted by Teboho Nchaba titled "Long-term austral summer wind speed trends over southern Africa" has been published:
Nchaba, T., M. Mpholo, and C. Lennard (2016). Long term austral summer wind speed trends over southern Africa. Int. J. Climatol.. doi: /joc.4883
Tich Mukunga’s M.Sc. has progressed well. Most analysis needed for the thesis has been performed during the 2016/2017 year.
Brendan Argent graduated with a Ph.D. in June 2016
Teboho Nchaba presented his work at the annual conference of the South African Society of Atmospheric Scientists in Cape Town in November 2016.
Alexa Brown presented her work at the annual conference of the European Geophysical Union in Vienna in April 2016 as well as a the annual meeting of the South African Society of Atmospheric Scientists in Cape Town in November 2016.

4. Completed activities for the months April 2016 to March 2017:
WP21.03 – Development of an ensemble-based wind atlas methodology
The method has been tested at DTU and has also been installed and tested on the CSAG computing cluster. Results from this methodology are very good.
Input of soil moisture conditions (from GLDAS) now implemented in WRF wind atlas method. Sensitivity studies have commenced with encouraging results.
WP21.04 – Climate Downscaling and mesoscale validation
Student proposals for Celeste Renaud and Nathaniel Robinson (see below)

5. Student progress report
Student supervision at UCT is ongoing. Supervision is shared by UCT (Dr Chris Lennard) and DTU (Dr Andrea Hahman) with Dr Lennard the primary supervisor and first point of contact for each student.
Brendan Argent graduated in July 2016 with a Ph.D.
Alexa Brown’s graduated on Wednesday (3 May 2017).
Teboho Nchaba has made very good progress in his work. His paper was published in 2016 and he is working on a second paper which will be submitted for publication in June 2017.
Tich Mukunga has completed most of the analysis needed for the thesis during the 2016/2017 year and writing up of the thesis will commence in July 2017.
Two Honours students have joined the WASA project in January They have developed a project proposal during Feb/March 2017 which will be presented to the Environmental and Geographical Science Department in April 2017 for review.

7. Planned activities for the months April 2017 to September 2018:
1. Regional model simulation and sensitivity studies - ongoing
The latest version of the WRF model has been installed at CSAG and sensitivity studies are ongoing. The WRF model has also been installed at the CHPC and duplicate experiments will be executed here.
2. Mesoscale and local scale process studies
Through the work of Teboho Nchaba and Tich Mukunga - both students are expected to hand in their theses before the end March Addttionally the work of the 2 B.Sc. (Hons) students contributes to our understanding of meso and local scale processes.
3. Development of ensemble based numerical wind atlas methodology
Experiments ongoing on DTU and CSAG (including CHPC) infrastructure.
4. Climate downscaling and mesoscale validation
Contribution to simulations for the production of the atlas and validation of results
5. Coupled to micro scale and validation of NWA against OWA
6. Quality assessment
7. Continued student activities as detailed above

8. An example of how WASA WRF data is being used outside core WASA activities
How do spatially varying wind affects the hydrodynamics of the False Bay region?
Processing of WASA 5 km Resolution 2D Grid File in MIKE Zero 2016
Modelled Wind Data (+10 m MSL) (Aug 2005 to October 2013)
Note faint outline of False Bay

9. Cape Town International Airport
Modelled Wind Data (+10 m MSL)
(Aug 2005 to October 2013)
Cape Town International Airport
Measured Wind Data (+46 m MSL)
(Aug 2005 to October 2013)

10. Weather Station - Slangkop
Modelled Wind Data (+10 m MSL)
(Aug 2005 to October 2013)
Weather Station - Slangkop
Measured Wind Data (+10 m MSL)
(Aug 2005 to October 2013)
Probabilistic non-exceedance plot of the modelled and measured data at the Slangkop weather station (or device).
Good correlation with the measured data for higher wind speeds exceeding 10 m/s