Perdigão

My Role

Served as group lead for the OU team operating a profiling system (mini-CLAMPS).
Assisted NCAR in releasing radiosondes to measure atmospheric flow in complex terrain in Perdigão, Portugal.

The CLAMPS1 facility was deployed to Portugal for a comprehensive campaign that collected a reference dataset at unprecedented resolution. Using dozens of towers, remote sensors, and balloons in a single valley, this project characterized the mean and turbulent wind fields in a natural setting, enabling advanced analysis techniques.

Atmospheric flow in complex terrain has received increased attention in recent years because of its numerous applications, including air pollution, contaminant dispersion, aviation, Alpine warfare and wind energy harvesting. While past research has mainly focused on and improved upon weather prediction at the mesoscale (resolution on the order of km), wind energy and dispersion applications demand improved accuracy of predictions at the microscale (tens to hundreds of meters). To this end, ERANET+, a European Union (EU) funding instrument, granted a consortium of EU scientists a megaproject to provide the wind energy sector with more detailed wind resource mapping capabilities. This was accomplished through the creation and publication of a New European Wind Atlas (NEWA) based on the development of improved models for wind energy physics and forecasting.

Embedded in the ERANET+ project was a comprehensive field campaign dubbed “Perdigão” in 2016-17, which collected a reference data set at unprecedented spatial resolutions, characterizing both the mean and turbulent wind fields in a natural setting. Augmenting the basic measurement and modeling capabilities of EU scientists with those from the US investigators added considerable value to the ERANET+ project while allowing US investigators to pursue scientific endeavors of their choosing.