1. Climate Science Research
in Support of the Wind Power Industry
Prepared for Visit to ISU by Florida Power and Light
Wind resource availability
Seasonal prediction
Impacts of climate change
Environmental impacts

2. In the Upper Midwest, Wind Resources are Influenced by:
Seasonal pressure patterns
Diurnal temperature stratification
Buffalo Ridge
Low-level jet
El Niño/La Niña (?)
Pacific Decadal Oscillation (?)
North Atlantic Oscillation (?)
Climate change (??)

3. “Given that a 1% error in wind speed estimates for a 100 MW wind generation facility can lead to losses approaching $12,000,000 over the lifetime of that plant, a better understanding of the physical and dynamic processes across the range of scales that create a particular wind climate is needed.”
Draft recommendations, DOE Workshop on Research Needs for Wind Resource Characterization, Jan 2008, Broomfield, CO

4. Seasonal and Interannual Variability of Wind Speeds
Wind Speed (m/s) departures from monthly means from 70-m tall towers in Minnesota
Klink, K., 2007: J. Appl. Meteor. Clim. 46, 446

5. Seasonal and Interannual Variability of Wind Speeds
Wind Speed (m/s) departures from monthly means from 70-m tall towers in Minnesota
Klink, K., 2007: J. Appl. Meteor. Clim. 46, 446

6. Seasonal and Interannual Variability of Wind Speeds

7. Seasonal and Interannual Variability of Wind Speeds

8. Seasonal and Interannual Variability of Wind Speeds

9. Seasonal Climate Prediction
Multi-RCM Ensemble Downscaling (MRED) of Multi-GCM Seasonal Forecasts*
Iowa State University
Experimental Climate Prediction Center (UC San Diego)
NOAA Climate Prediction Center
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
* NOAA funding

10. Trends in Wind Speeds, 1973-2005*
Observations do not agree with reanalysis
* Pryor,Barthelmie, Takle, Anderson, EGU Annual Meeting, Vienna

11. North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP)
An international, multi-agency program to produce multiple realizations of future scenario climates at regional scales by use of global climate models (GCMs) and regional climate models (RCMs)

12. NARCCAP Plan A2 Emissions Scenario GFDL CCSM HADAM3 CGCM3 MM5 RegCM3
link to EU
programs
CGCM3
current
future
Provide boundary conditions
MM5
Iowa State/
PNNL
RegCM3
UC Santa Cruz
ICTP
CRCM
Quebec,
Ouranos
HADRM3
Hadley Centre
RSM
Scripps
WRF
NCAR/
Note: AGCM time slices to be included, too. Initial phase involves driving RCMs with reanalysis output.
Reanalyzed climate ,

13. Eugene S. Takle gstakle@iastate.edu 515-294-9871
Contact information:
Eugene S. Takle
Professor of Atmospheric Science
Professor of Agricultural Meteorology
Professor of Aerospace Engineering (courtesy appointment)
Director, ISU Climate Science Initiative