1592 J O U R N A L OF A P P L I E D M E T E O R O L O G Y AND C L I M A T O L O G Y VOLUME 52

Analysis of WRF Model Wind Estimate Sensitivity to Physics Parameterization

Choice and Terrain Representation in Andalusia (Southern Spain)
F. J. SANTOS-ALAMILLOS, D . POZO-VÁZOUEZ, J. A. RUIZ-ARIAS,
V. L A R A - F A N E G O , AND J. T O V A R - P E S C A D O R

Physics Department, University of Jaén, Jaén, Andalusia, Spain

(Manuscript reeeived 23 July 2012, infinalform 24 February 2013)

ABSTRACT
This paper reports on an evaluation of the relative roles of choice of parameterization scheme and terrain
representation in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) mesoscale model, in the context of a regional
wind resource assessment. As a flrst step, 32 configurations using two different schemes for microphysies,
cumulus, planetary boundary layer (PBL), or shortwave and longwave radiation were evaluated. In a second
step, wind estimates that were obtained from various experiments with different spatial resolution (1, 3, and
9 km) were assessed. Estimates were tested against data from four stations, located in southern Spain, that
provided hourly wind speed and direction data at 40 m above ground level. Results from the first analysis
showed that wind speed standard deviation (STD) and bias values were mainly sensitive to the PBL pa-
rameterization selection, with STD differences up to 10% and bias differences between -15% and 10%. The
second analysis showed a weak influence of spatial resolution on the STD values. On the other hand, the bias
was found to be highly sensitive to model spatial resolution. The sign of the bias depended on terrain mor-
phology and the spatial resolution, but absolute values tended to be much higher with coarser spatial reso-
lution. Physical configuration was found to have little impact on wind direction distribution estimates. In
addition, these estimates proved to be more sensitive to the ability of WRF to represent the terrain mor-
phology around the station than to the model spatial resolution itself.

1. Introduction a comprehensive description of the atmospheric system,

Reliable wind resource assessment is a key issue in the using initial and boundary conditions from atmospheric
evaluation of wind energy potential and in studies re- reanalysis. On the basis of dynamical downscaling tech-
lated to integration of wind energy electricity produc- niques, current NWP models resolve local and regional
tion (GE Energy 2010). Such wind resource assessment circulation patterns, taking into account local topo-
can be divided into two steps (Sempreviva et al. 2008)— graphic surface features to a certain extent. Thus, these
a regional wind assessment, which evaluates resources of models can provide accurate meteorological informa-
a region as a flrst approach, and a site-speciflc assess- tion, such as wind speed and direction, over large regions
ment, which is a detailed evaluation of speciflc areas that at high temporal (a few minutes) and spatial (a few
exhibit high potential in the regional assessment. At this kilometers) resolution.
time, regional wind assessment is mostly based on nu- Despite the high resolution of current NWP models
merical weather prediction (NWP) models (Frank et al. (~km), there are still two main problems in the esti-
2001; Landberg et al. 2003; Lavagnini et al. 2006; Zagar mation of surface meteorological variables, especially
et al. 2006; Kanamitsu and Kanamaru 2007; Byrkjedal near-surface wind speed. These problems are 1) repre-
and Berge 2008; Jiménez et al. 2007; Hahmann et al. sentation of topography and terrain morphology in the
2010; Shimada and Ohsawa 2011). NWP modeis facilitate modeled domains and 2) representation of the numer-
ous physical processes at subgrid scale.
Topography and terrain morphology have a marked
influence on surface meteorological variables, especially
Corresponding author address: D. Pozo-Vázquez, Physics De-
partment, University of Jaén, Campus Las Lagunillas s/n Edif A3, on surface wind speed and direction. Surface winds re-
E23071, Jaén, Spain. sult from interaction between mesoscale circulation and
E-mail: dpozo@ujaen.es other more local factors, many of which are related to
DOI: 10.1175/JAMC-D-12-0204.1

© 2013 American Meteorological Society

JULY 2013 SANTOS-ALAMILLOS ET AL.
topographic characteristics (elevation, aspect, and slope)
and terrain morphology (hills, valleys, and others). First,
wind speed changes with elevation in the planetary
boundary layer (PBL) as a result of reduced turbulent
drag. Second, terrain features can accelerate wind flow.
As it passes a summit, an approaching air mass is often
squeezed into a thinner layer and therefore speeds up.
Aside from elevation, terrain morphology (terrain aspect
and slope) can also modify wind flow. Over a ridge, there
is maximum acceleration when wind blows perpendicular
to the ridge line. Terrain morphology is also important;
wind flow accelerates through passes along valleys
aligned with the flow (channeling). In a similar way,
topography may produce local areas of reduced wind
speed, such as sheltered valleys and areas in the lee of
a mountain ridge. Last, it is also well known that in
complex-topography areas strong horizontal tempera-
ture gradients, caused by the sloping terrain, generate
mountain and valley wind regimes. If the study region is
composed of flat and homogeneous land. Weather Re-
search and Forecasting model (WRF) terrain repre-
sentation may be accurate enough to provide reliable
near-surface wind estimates. This representation, how-
ever, may provide unreliable surface wind estimates in
complex-topography areas, even using high spatial res-
olutions. This issue is usually addressed in specific site
assessment, using microscale models such as the Wind
Atlas Analysis and Application Program (WAsP;
Mortensen et al. 1998). This type of model provides site-
specific wind estimates that are based on terrain in-
formation and wind measurements from nearby stations
and are at very high spatial resolution (—100 m). Wind
estimates from WAsP are constrained by the availability
of local measurement data and by the complexity of the
study area. In the last few years, several methods have
been proposed for using NWP wind estimates as input to
microscale models like WAsP (Frank et al. 2001; Berge
et al. 2007).
Physical subgrid processes are taken into account in
NWP models by the use of parameterization schemes. In
particular, most models include schemes to account for
cloud microphysics (MPH), cumulus formation (CMS),
PBL processes, surface-layer physics, land surface layer,
or shortwave and longwave radiation (SWR and LWR,
respectively). Stensrud (2007) presents some of these
parameterizations. In the last decades, many different
parameterization schemes have been proposed. Their
validity is highly dependent on the study region, season
of the year, and spatial and temporal scales of interest,
however. In fact, given a spatial and temporal configu-
ration, the skill of a model mainly depends on these
physical parameterizations (Lynn et al. 2004; Fernández
et al. 2007). As a consequence, a prior performance
1593
evaluation of different parameterization versions of the
various schemes, for the given study area and applica-
tion, is advisable.
The WRF (Skamarock et al. 2008) model is one of
the most widely used NWP models, being a reference
for regional wind resource assessment. Over recent
decades, many different parameterizations have been
proposed for this model, especially for the PBL. PBL
parameterizations are responsible for vertical subgrid-
scale fluxes, allowing eddy transports through the entire
atmospheric column. Wind distribution is affected by
factors such as PBL height, wind shear, and entrainment
of free atmospheric air into the PBL, which determines
momentum, heat, and moisture exchanges at the top of
the layer (Arya 2001). These processes may vary con-
siderably depending on, for instance, the study region or
spatial and temporal scales. As a consequence, many
authors have reported strong sensitivity of WRF (and
other NWP) surface wind estimates to PBL parame-
terization, in many areas of the world: the United States
(Zhang and Zheng 2004; Watson et al. 2009; Hu et al.
2010; Gibbs et al. 2011), South Korea (Kim et al. 2005;
Kwun et al. 2009), Spain (Pérez-Landa et al. 2007; Borge
et al. 2008), and Sweden (Miao et al. 2008).
For other NWP parameterizations, the influence of
selected schemes on surface wind speed estimates, al-
though less important, could be significant. For instance,
MPH schemes include explicitly resolved water vapor,
cloud, and precipitation processes. According to Rajeevan
et al. (2010), cloud microphysical processes are important
because of their direct influence on cold-pool strength
(from rainfall evaporation) and latent heating (from
condensation). Therefore, MPH processes can affect
wind fields close to the surface. SWR parameterizations
include visible and near-visible wavelengths, whereas
LWR parameterizations include infrared or longwave
radiation absorbed and emitted by gases and surfaces. In
complex topography, differences in surface radiation
generate important thermal contrasts that in turn create
local wind regimes. CMS schemes represent subgrid-
scale effects of convective and/or shallow clouds. These
schemes are mainly intended to account for vertical
fluxes from unresolved updrafts and downdrafts, and
compensating motions outside clouds. CMS parame-
terization schemes are largely evaluated for precip-
itation estimates (Kotroni and Lagouvardos 2001),
and literature focusing on wind estimates is scarce
(Cohen 2002). Clouds have a significant effect on PBL
processes, however, affecting hydrologie processes
through redistributions of sensible and latent heats
and momentum (Arakawa 2004). Therefore, different
CMS parameterization schemes may produce varying
surface wind estimates.
1594 J O U R N A L OF A P P L I E D M E T E O R O L O G Y AND C L I M A T O L O G Y VOLUME 52

FIG. 1. Location (inset at bottom left) and principal topographic and geographic charac-
teristics of the study region. The locations of the four validation stations are highlighted with
crosses. Grayscale colors indicate elevation above sea level as based on a 90-m-resolution
DEM. The scale at the right indicates elevation in meters above sea level.

Some authors (Jiménez and Dudhia 2012) have re-
ported a positive bias in WRF wind speed estimates over
plains and valleys [about lms~'at 10m above ground
level (AGL)] and a negative bias over hills and mountains
(about - 3 m s"^ at 10 m AGL). The main reason for the
positive bias seems to be unresolved topographic fea-
tures, such as hills or mountains in complex terrain. These
can produce additional drag, which is not parameterized
in the WRF, in addition to the drag generated by vege-
tation (Beljaars et al. 2004; Jiménez and Dudhia 2012).
The magnitude of this bias is related to the differences
between the actual and WRF-modeled station elevations.
This work evaluates the relative roles of terrain rep-
resentation and choice of parameterization schemes in
the WRF as they relate to regional wind resource as-
sessment. To evaluate the sensitivity of WRF wind es-
timates to the choice of parameterization schemes, we
first evaluated 32 physical configurations resulting from
combination of two different PBL, MPH, CMS, SWR,
and LWR parameterization schemes. For each scheme,
we evaluated one widely used parameterization and
a new one available in the recent WRF release (version
3.2; V3.2). Therefore, a by-product of this work is a
comparative evaluation of the new schemes against the
old ones. In a second step, to evaluate sensitivity of the
wind estimates to the terrain representation and mor-
phology in the WRF, we also evaluated wind speed and
direction estimates obtained from different experiments
at 1-, 3-, and 9-km spatial resolution.
The work applies to the region of Andalusia (southern
Spain). Although relatively small, this region is charac-
terized by varied topographic, geographic, and weather
conditions that make the evaluation especially chal-
lenging. Estimates are tested against data from four
stations that provide hourly wind speed and direction
data at 40 m AGL. Station locations are representative
of different topographic and climatic conditions, thus
allowing a comprehensive evaluation of the WRF wind
estimates.
To sum up, the main objectives of this work are 1) to
obtain a general model setup to be used for a long in-
tegration to be used toward evaluating wind resources in
the study region, 2) to evaluate the extent to which this
single setup can provide accurate wind estimates in
a region that is characterized by strongly variable cli-
mate conditions, and 3) to assess the extent to which an
increase in WRF spatial resolution gives better esti-
mates in a region that is characterized by the existence of
areas with complex topography.
The work is organized as follows: section 2 describes
the study region, terrain characteristics, and data. Section 3
details the methods, and section 4 gives the results.
The main conclusions are presented in section 5.
2. Study region and data
The study region (Fig. 1) of Andalusia is in the south-
em Iberian Peninsula (IP). It extends over 87000km^.
The region (35°30'-38°30'N, 7°30'-l°30'W) is in a tran-
sition zone between temperate and subtropical climates.
From a topographic point of view, the region may be
split into two different parts. The western part, covering
~40000km^, is a nearly homogeneous flat area that is
around 100 m MSL. The eastern part has very complex
JULY 2013 S A N T O S - A L A M I L L O S ET A L .
TABLE 1. The main topographic characteristics at the station locations. Displayed are elevations at station locations from a 90-m-spatial-
resolution DEM and from the WRF model using three different spatial resolutions (9,3, and 1 km). The standard deviation of elevation
(denoted as cr) and the relief (denoted as mde) parameters are also shown for each station. Both parameters were derived from the DEM
and from the 1-km-spatial-resolution WRF domain and were computed over an area of 3 km x 3 km centered at each station location. All
values are presented in meters.
Station ElevWRF,
Elev DEM Elev WRF, 9 km Elev WRF 3 km ElevWRF, 1km o-DEM
Centenar 236 229 253
Gomera 640 405 464
Almirez 1195 1052 1178
Los Nietos 1056 1262 1013
topography with several mountain areas, reaching
3482 m MSL in Sierra Nevada National Park (the highest
elevation on the IP).
The atmospheric circulation over most of the IP is
dominated by a semipermanent, subtropical high pres-
sure center over the Azores Islands, particularly so in
the south part of the study region. The position and in-
tensity of this center changes throughout the year.
During winter, the high is at lower latitudes, allowing the
region to be affected by zonal circulations from the west.
During summer, the high migrates northward, blocking
off westerly circulations over most of the IP and par-
ticularly over the study region (Pozo-Vázquez et al.
2001; Trigo et al. 2002; Castro-Diez et al. 2002). Al-
though the entire region is under the influence of the
Azores subtropical high, it has a wide range of climate
conditions. This range is related to topographic fea-
tures. The eastern part is less influenced by the Azores
high and is more affected by the Mediterranean Sea
(Esteban-Parra et al. 1998; Rodríguez-Puebla et al. 1998;
Ramos-Calzado et al. 2008). The western part is the
lower Guadalquivir River basin. It is open to the At-
lantic Ocean and to direct influence by atmospheric flow
controlled by the Azores high. The Guadalquivir valley
is exposed to mild and moist air from the Atlantic year-
round except during summer. Winds are channeled
through this valley, generating strong mean surface wind
speeds in the upper valley (Alsamamra 2009). The
eastern part is partially isolated from this Atlantic in-
fluence by the Sierra Nevada and Cazorla Mountain
ranges (Fig. 1). Annual precipitation over the region
consequently ranges from 300mmyr"^ in coastal, semi-
desert southeast areas to more than 2500mmyr~^ in
mountains near the Strait of Gibraltar (Ramos-Calzado
et al. 2008). In addition, the study region is bounded on
the south by the Atlantic (western part) and the Medi-
terranean (eastern part), representing about 900 km
of coastline. One of the most important wind features
is strong, semipermanent winds near the Strait of
Gibraltar coast.
Validation of WRF estimates was carried out by using
data from four meteorological masts (Fig. 1). These data
1595
mde DEM o-WRF 1km mde WRF 1km
253 17 152 13 36
515 67 310 49 178
1182 58 270 55 215
1055 38 158 33 108
were furnished by the wind division of Gamesa Corpo-
ration and include hourly-averaged wind speed and di-
rection data measured at 40 m AGL for 16 days in 2005.
The 16 days at each station were selected as represen-
tative of different periods in that year—data from 2 to 5
February, from 9 to 12 April, from 28 to 31 August, and
from 7 to 10 October were used to represent winter,
spring, summer, and autumn, respectively. We conducted
a quality-control procedure that was based on Jiménez
et al. (2010) and found no suspicious data. We used
wind data collected at 40 m AGL for the evaluation
rather than the much more common wind data at 10 m
AGL that are measured at most meteorological sta-
tions. This procedure gives the results greater repre-
sentativeness for regional wind resource assessment,
mainly because wind speeds measured at the lower
elevation are frequently influenced by local features
near the meteorological stations (buildings, vegetation,
and others), which are definitely not captured in an
NWP model.
The areas containing the four masts have very dif-
ferent terrain complexity and morphology. Since these
factors have a marked influence on surface wind speed
and direction, a topographic characterization was at-
tempted. This characterization is important to the dis-
cussion of the evaluation result in section 4. Many
different parameters for characterizing terrain com-
plexity have been defined in the literature (Huaxing
2008). In this work, we consider two types of parameters:
the standard deviation of elevation (denoted as cr) and
the difference between the highest and lowest elevation
in a specific region (denoted as mde). We derived both
parameters from a 90-m-spatial-resolution digital ele-
vation model (DEM; Farr et al. 2007). In particular, on
the basis of the elevations reported by this DEM, we
computed a and mde on an area of 3 km X 3 km cen-
tered at each mast location. Both a and mde represent
subgrid-scale topographic complexity at the station lo-
cations. Table 1 shows these parameters for the four
stations, along with station elevations derived from the
DEM and WRF. The terrain topography and morphology
surrounding the stations are represented in Figs. 2 and 3.
1596 J O U R N A L OF A P P L I E D M E T E O R O L O G Y AND C L I M A T O L O G Y VOLUME 52

FIG. 2. Topographic maps for the (a) Centenar, (b) Gomera, (c) Almirez, and (d) Los Nietos stations. Each map is
10 km X 10 km, centered at the station location, and was obtained by using a 10-m-resolution DEM. The scale at the
right indicates elevation in meters above sea level.

Figure 2 shows a detailed elevation map around the
station locations that was obtained from a 10-m-spatial-
resolution DEM. Figure 3 also shows elevations maps
around the stations, derived from a 90-m DEM and the
WRF domains using the three spatial resolutions (1, 3,
and 9 km). For better understanding of the terrain
morphology, observed wind direction distributions for
the whole evaluation period (16 days) at the four sta-
tions are also shown in Fig. 3.
Centenar station (Fig. 1) is in the western part of the
study region, relatively close to the Atlantic Ocean.
Thus, the climatological behavior at this site is strongly
influenced by mild and humid Atlantic winds through-
out the year. The station is atop a hill (Fig. 2a), and
the surrounding area has relatively low topographic
complexity. In fact, this area has the smallest values of
a and mde (17 and 152 m, respectively) and therefore
the least topographic complexity among the analyzed
stations (Table 1). Elevation in the WRF integrations
ranges from 229 (WRF 9 km) to 253 (WRF 1 km) m MSL,
whereas the elevation in the DEM is 236 m MSL. This
WRF under/overestimation of station elevation seems to
be associated with the spatial averaging, since there are
hills near the station (Figs. 2a and 3a). In this case, the
coarser spatial resolution better represented the terrain
elevation. Nevertheless, as observed in Fig. 3d, terrain
morphology is more realistic at 1-km spatial resolution
than at coarser resolutions (Figs. 3b and 3c). Wind di-
rection variability at Centenar is substantially higher than
at the other stations (Fig. 3e).
JULY 2013 SANTOS-ALAMILLOS ET AL. 1597

Centenar
• [0.0 : 2.0]
• [2.0 : 4.0]
• [4.0 : 6.0]
B [6.0 : 8.0]
I 1 [8.0 ; 10.0]
• [10.0 : 12.0]
• [12.0 : inf]

Gomera
[0.0 ; 2.0]
[2.0 : 4.0]
[4.0 : 6.0]
[6.0 : 8.0]
[8.0 : 10.0]
[10.0 : 12.0]
[12.0 : inf]

Almirez
• • [0.0 : 2.0]
• • [2.0:4.0]
• • [4.0 : 6.0]
^m [6.0 : 8.0]
CZZl [8.0 : 10.0]
^m [10.0 : 12.0]
• • [12.0 : infl

Los Nietos
• [0.0 : 2.01
• [2.0 : 4.0]
• [4.0 : 6.0]
• [6.0 : 8.0]
3 [8.0 : 10.0]
• [10.0 : 12.0)
• [12.0 : inf]

FiG. 3. Terrain morphology and observed wind direction distribution for the four validation stations for the whole study period
(16 days). Shown are the (a) elevation map of a 50 km x 50 km area centered on Centenar station, as derived from 90-m DEM, and the
elevation maps used in the (b) 9-, (c) 3-, and (d) 1-km-spatial-resolution WRF setups for the Centenar station, also showing areas of
50 km X 50 km centered on the station. The scales at the right in (a)-(d) indicate elevation in meters above sea level, (e) Wind direction
distribution observed at Centenar station at 40 m AGL. The values in the circle indicate percentage of observations; the color scale at right
indicates ranges of wind speed (ms~'). Also shown are plots as in (a)-(e), but for the (f)-û) Gomera, (k)-(o) Almirez, and (p)-(t) Los
Nietos stations.

Gomera station is in the middle of the study region, on
the southern boundary of the Guadalquivir valley (Fig. 1).
The station is also atop a hill (Fig. 2b), at an elevation
of 640 m MSL. The area around the station has the
greatest topographic complexity among the analyzed
stations, as derived from values of a (67 m) and mde
(310 m) (Table 1). As a consequence and as expected,
differences in the station elevation from the various
WRF conflgurations are considerable—from 405 (WRF
9 km) to 515 (WRF 1 km) m MSL. In this case, elevation
and, of note, terrain morphology are much better rep-
resented by the 1-km WRF integration (Fig. 3i). The
hilltop location and morphology of the surrounding
terrain clearly determine the wind direction distribution
(Fig. 3j), through enhancing the southeast direction.
Almirez station is in the far east of the region (Fig. 1),
on the middle of a plateau of considerable elevation
(>1000m MSL), facilitating continental climate condi-
tions. Station elevation is 1195 m MSL, in the foothills of
a mountain range and near a valley (Fig. 2c). It has the
second greatest topographic complexity after Gomera
(Table 1). As in the previous case, differences in station
elevation from the different WRF conflgurations are
considerable—from 1052 (WRF 9 km) to 1182 (WRF
1 km) m MSL. Morphology of the surrounding topog-
raphy clearly dominates the wind direction distribution
(Fig. 2o), enhancing the frequency corresponding to the
southeast and northwest directions. Note that the
strongest winds are mainly from the northwest. Unlike
in the previous cases, station elevation (Table 1) and
surrounding terrain morphology seem reasonably rep-
resented in both the 3- and 1-km WRF integrations
(Figs. 3k, 3m, and 3n). This will be conflrmed when an-
alyzing the results in section 4.
Los Nietos station is also in the east, at high elevation
(1056 m MSL) (Fig. 1), with climate conditions that are
very similar to those of Almirez. The main feature of this
station is its location in the middle of a valley, with rel-
atively low topographic complexity (Fig. 2d). As a con-
sequence, this station has the second-lowest a and mde
1598 J O U R N A L OF A P P L I E D M E T E O R O L O G Y AND C L I M A T O L O G Y VOLUME 52

FIG. 4. Spatial configuration of domains used for numerical simulations: (a) the three nested domains at 27-, 9-, and
3-km spatial resolution for Andalusia (southern Spain) that were used in the first analysis and (b) the four domains
centered on Centenar station at 27-, 9-, 3-, and 1-km spatial resolutions that were used in the second analysis. Similar
spatial configurations, but centered on the corresponding station locations, were used for the remaining stations.

values after Centenar (Table 1). Thus, as expected,
terrain morphology (Figs. 3p, 3r, and 3s) and station
elevation (Table 1) are reasonably reproduced in both
the 3- and 1-km WRF configurations. Wind direction at
this station is clearly controlled by the valley effect, and
its distribution is the narrowest of the four that were
analyzed (Fig. 3t).
To sum up, the four station locations have different
climate conditions, topographic complexity, and terrain
morphology. Los Nietos and Almirez stations are at el-
evations above 1000 m MSL in the mountainous eastern
part of the study region and therefore have cold con-
tinental climates. In contrast, the Centenar station is
at relatively low elevation in the eastern Guadalquivir
River basin, which is an area that is characterized by
a mild oceanic climate. For topography, the Gomera
area has the highest topographic complexity, followed
by Almirez. On the other hand, Los Nietos and, espe-
cially. Centenar are in areas of relatively low topographic
complexity. The effect of terrain morphology near each
station is important for wind direction distribution—
particularly for Gomera, Almirez, and Los Nietos.
3. Methods
The WRF model, version 3.2, was evaluated in this
work. Model runs were conducted for the days men-
tioned in section 2, and two different spatial configura-
tions were used, depending on the study.
The first study was on the influence of choice of pa-
rameterization scheme on the wind speed and wind
direction estimates. In this endeavor, the model config-
uration included three nested domains, with 27-, 9-, and
3-km spatial resolutions (Fig. 4a). Data were ultimately
analyzed for the third nested domain (3 km), centered
on the study region. A two-way interaction was used in
the three domains, with 36 vertical levels, 8 of which
were within the first 1000 m above ground. The vertical
levels were configured following Hahmann et al. (2010),
Draxl (2012), and Horvath et al. (2012). The first five
lowest vertical levels—at approximately 4, 18, 43, 64,
and 76 m above the modeled ground level—^were used in
a vertical interpolation to estimate the wind speed and
direction at the measurement elevation (40m AGL).
Topography, land use, and land/water-mask datasets
were interpolated from the U.S. Geological Survey
(USGS) land cover dataset (Loveland et al. 2000), with
appropriate spatial resolution for each domain (5', 1',
and 30", respectively).
The second study was on the effect of topography rep-
resentation on the wind speed and wind direction estimates.
In this effort, the model configuration included four nested
domains, with 27-, 9-, 3-, and 1-km spatial resolutions. In
this case, a one-way interaction was used in all domains.
Moreover, as in the previous study, we also used 36 levels
for the vertical configuration of the domains. An example
of this spatial configuration is shown in Fig. 4b (Centenar
case). Topography, land use, and land/water-mask data-
sets were interpolated from the USGS land cover, with
appropriate spatial resolution for each domain (5' and 2'
for the domains with 27- and 9-km spatial resolution,
respectively, and 30" for the 3- and 1-km domains).
JULY 2013 SANTOS-ALAMILLOS ET AL. 1599

TABLE 2. Schemes used to configure the 32 experiments for PBL, MPH, CMS, or SWR and LWR parameterizations. The center column
shows widely used schemes that were implemented in older versions of the WRF model and the right column shows schemes that are
newly implemented in WRF, version 3.2. Here, MYNN is Mellor-Yamada-Nakanishi-Niino.

Parameterization Routine schemes New schemes in WRF V3.2

PBL YSU (Pl; Hong et al. 2006) MYNN (P2; Nakanishi and Niino 2004)
MPH Morrison-2M (Ml; Morrison and Gettelman 2008) Thompson (M2)
CMS Kain-Fritsch (Cl; Kain and Fritsch 1993) Grell-3D (C2)
SWR Goddard (SI; Chou and Suarez 1994) RRTMG_SW (S2)
LWR RRTM (LI; Mlawer et al. 1997) RRTMG.LW (L2)

In the first study, 32 physical configurations (Table 2)
were evaluated. This evaluation was conducted with a
3-km spatial resolution. These configurations were com-
posed as a combination of two different schemes for the
PBL, MPH, CMS, SWR, and LWR parameterizations—
one widely used and referenced scheme (first column in
Table 2) and a new one, available in a recent WRF
model release (version 3.2; second column in Table 2).
Selection of the old schemes for the various physical
configurations was based on previous evaluations of
WRF performance in the study region (Fernández et al.
2007; Borge et al. 2008; Ruiz-Arias et al. 2008). Table 3
shows the parameterization in each experiment. We
note that a computer-code error ("bug") in the Yonsei
University (YSU) PBL scheme that was used in this
study that affects the simulation of the stable boundary
layer and its consistency with thermal roughness length
has been recently reported (see the WRF V3.4.1 updates
at http://www.wrf-model.org). Nevertheless, we think it
would not affect seriously the results presented in sec-
tion 4. As explained in section 4, results of the first study
show that the wind estimates were sensitive mainly to
the choice of PBL parameterization. As a consequence,
for the sake of conciseness in the second study, only
variations of the PBL parameterization were consid-
ered, keeping the rest of the parameterizations fixed.
This approach considerably reduces the complexity of
the analysis. In particular, in the second study, we
evaluated the WRF wind estimates at three different
spatial resolutions (1, 3, and 9 km) and used two alter-
native PBL parameterizations. In addition, for the last
domain (1-km spatial resolution) the cumulus parame-
terization was disabled.
Initial and boundary conditions for the simulation
were generated using the Interim European Centre for
Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Re-Analysis (ERA-
Interim; Uppala et al. 2008) with 0.7° spatial resolution
and 6-h time interval. Newtonian relaxation or nudging
is one method of four-dimensional data assimilation
implemented in mesoscale models. This technique aims
to relax the model state toward gridded analyses that are
based on observations (analysis nudging) or directly
toward the individual observations (observation nudg-
ing). This method is attempted by adding artificial
forcing terms to the model predictive equations on the
basis of the difference between both states weighted
by nudge coefficients (Seaman 2000). Several works in
the literature have shown that the use of nudging in

TABLE 3. Nomenclature of the 32 physical configurations evaluated. Experiments E15 and E31, highlighted in boldface type, were used in
analysis of terrain representation influence.

Nomenclature Physical configuration Nomenclature Physical configuration

El Pl-Ml- Cl-Rl-Ll E17 P2-M1- Cl-Rl-Ll
E2 Pl-Ml- C1-R1-L2 E18 P2-M1- C1-R1-L2
E3 Pl-Ml- C1-R2-L1 E19 P2-M1- C1-R2-L1
E4 Pl-Ml- C1-R2-L2 B20 P2-M1- C1-R2-L2
E5 Pl-Ml C2-R1-L1 E21 P2-M1- C2-R1-L1
E6 Pl-Ml. C2-R1-L2 E22 P2-M1- C2-R1-L2
E7 Pl-Ml- C2-R2-L1 E23 P2-M1- C2-R2-L1
E8 Pl-Ml..C2-R2-L2 E24 P2-M1. C2-R2-L2
B9 P1-M2- Cl-Rl-Ll E25 P2-M2- Cl-Rl-Ll
ElO P1-M2- C1-R1-L2 E26 P2-M2- C1-R1-L2
Ell P1-M2..C1-R2-L1 E27 P2-M2. C1-R2-L1
E12 P1-M2--C1-R2-L2 E28 P2-M2- C1-R2-L2
E13 P1-M2-O-Rl-Ll E29 P2-M2- C2-R1-L1
E14 P1-M2-.C2-R1-L2 E30 P2-M2 C2-R1-L2
E15 P1-M2 .C2-R2-L1 E31 P2-M2 .C2-R2-L1
E16 P1-M2-.C2-R2-L2 E32 P2-M2--C2-R2-L2
1600 JOURNAL OF APPLIED METEOROLOGY AND CLIMATOLOGY
a meteorological model leads to improved meteorolog-
ical simulations (Stauffer and Seaman 1994; Seaman
et al. 1995; Seaman 2000; Otte 2008). The nudging to-
ward gridded analysis was used in this study, and nudge
coefficients for temperature and water mixing ratio were
selected following Otte (2008), that is, 3 X 10"'*s"' for
temperature, 1.0 X lO^^s"^ for water mixing ratio, and
3 X 10"* s~^ for the horizontal wind components. Since
the use of analysis nudging in high-resolution domains
and near the surface may inhibit the simulation of im-
portant mesoscale features, the analysis nudging was
applied only for the first domain (27 km) and only for the
last 15 vertical levels. The simulations were conducted
with a spinup of 24 h and outputs were saved every
10 min, and then horizontal wind components were
hourly averaged.
Following the method of Draxl (2012), the model grid
points that are representative for the station locations were
selected by comparing the modeled and actual elevation
and distance to the coast. To this end, the model elevation
and distance to the coast of all of the grid points inside
a window of 3 X 3 (9) cells centered at each station loca-
tion were compared with the corresponding values derived
from the DEM. For each station, the grid point that min-
imized the accumulated squared errors was selected.
Validation of the different model configurations was
done on the basis of various statistics for both wind
speed and direction. First, we used the standard de-
viation (STD) of residuals between observed and mod-
eled wind speed, which estimates the amount of scatter
of the wind speed errors:
1/2
STD =
N or
1/2
relative STD = XIOO,
where A^ is the number of records and m, and o, are
modeled and observed wind speed values, respectively.
Second, we used the mean error or bias, which quantifies
overall overestimation or underestimation of modeled
wind speed estimates:
¡ - o¡)
bias = or
N
relative bias = X 100.
VOLUME 52
Direction data have traditionally been analyzed using
graphical methods in the literature. In particular, the
comparison of wind direction distributions (wind-rose
plots) has been used for gaining an understanding of di-
rectional characteristics. In this work, however, we wan-
ted to provide a quantitative measure of the performance
of the wind direction estimates, as in the wind speed case.
A possibility is the deterministic forecast of multiple
categories [described in WMO (2000)]. This method
mainly consists of a categorical comparison that is based
on a contingency table, which is built by ranking the wind
direction intervals. From this analysis, several parameters
can be derived, such as the reliability, accuracy, and the
skill score (WMO 2000). In particular, the accuracy is
calculated as the sum of the diagonal of the contingency
matrix, divided by the sum of the whole matrix. This
parameter has limitations, however, because it could be
that simulated and observed directions were in different
categories although the circular residual was low.
To avoid this problem, in this work we propose a new
parameter for analyzing the accuracy of the wind di-
rection estimates: the directional accuracy (DACC) pa-
rameter. This parameter is based on the circular distance,
defined as the smaller of the two arc lengths between two
points along a circumference (Jammalamadaka and
Sengupta 2001). For angles a and ß , the circular dis-
tance is defined as
Ae(a, ß) = mm[a - ß, 360° -(a-ß)].
Then, we define the DACC to account for the percent-
age of times in which the circular distance between the
observed and modeled wind direction is lower than
a threshold, chosen as 30° here:
0°<Aö,.<30°)
DACC= X 100.
N
Results presented in section 4 correspond to the whole
dataset (16 days). Nevertheless, these results are shown to
be generally consistent across the four periods (one per
season) of simulations. It is important to mention that this
work focused on the infiuence of physics parameteriza-
tion and terrain configuration in the WRF model wind-
estimate errors. Nevertheless, other sources of errors—such
as wind measurements errors, errors associated with the
initialization/boundary conditions, land surface parame-
ter representation errors, or errors associated with an
unresolved horizontal thermal gradient—were not con-
sidered in the evaluation procedure. In addition, differing
nesting parameterization schemes could be another
source of discrepancies in model predictions.
JULY 2013 SANTOS-ALAMILLOS ET AL. 1601

FlG. 5. Relative STD (%) of residuals between observed and modeled wind speed for 32 different experiments at
the (a) Centenar, (b) Gomera, (c) Almirez, and (d) Los Nietos stations. The configuration of each experiment can be
detertnined from Tables 2 and 3.

4. Results and discussion
a. Analysis of sensitivity to parameterization choice
Figures 5-7 show, respectively, relative STD, relative
bias, and DACC values obtained for the 32 experiments
at each station. Figure 8 shows the sensitivity of STD,
bias, and DACC values to the parameterization choice
for each station. To this end, the figure shows mean
values of these parameters resulting from the 16 ex-
periments in which each parameterization was involved.
The STD values (Fig. 5) show considerable differ-
ences among stations and are higher for the Almirez and
Centenar stations. Almirez shows the highest values,
between 48% and 55% for all experiments. In contrast,
Los Nietos has the lowest values, between 33% and 37%
for most experiments. Dependence of STD on physical
configuration varies considerably among stations. Cen-
tenar is the most sensitive by a large amount, followed
by Gomera. Recall that these are the lowest-elevation
stations, in the western part of the study area. A clear
dependence of results on the PBL scheme is observed
for these two stations. In particular, experiments E l -
E16, which use the Pl PBL scheme, produce considerably
lower STD than do experiments E17-E32, which use the
P2 PBL scheme. This is confirmed in Fig. 8. In particular.
Fig. 8a shows that use of Pl PBL instead of P2 for
Centenar reduces STD by 6% on average (37% vs43%).
The other stations show smaller STD differences, of less
than 3%, associated with the PBL scheme choice (Figs.
8b-d). Sensitivity of STD to the other parameterizations
is smaller for all stations. Therefore, aside from the PBL,
there is no clear and systematic effect of parameteriza-
tion selection on STD at any of the four stations. Nev-
ertheless, there are certain combinations of schemes
that perform better than others. These combinations
unfortunately vary among stations. For instance, for
Centenar, STD varies from about 35% (E12: best ex-
periment) to 45% (E27: worst experiment). The best
experiment for Gomera is E14 (34%) and the worst is
E28 (40%). The best experiments for Almirez and Los
Nietos are E l (48%) and E15 (33%), respectively.
Similar to STD, bias values (Fig. 6) show a notable
dependence on the station and physical configura-
tion, ranging from - 1 5 % to 10%. There is a clear ten-
dency to underestimate wind speed at Almirez and Los
Nietos (Figs. 6c,d). The Pl parameterization performs
1602 JOURNAL OF APPLIED METEOROLOGY AND CLIMATOLOGY VOLUME 52

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••:
FlG. 6. As in Fig. 5, but for relative bias (%).

considerably better than P2 at these stations. At Cen- PBL scheme) show a negative bias, whereas experi-
tenar and Gomera stations (Figs. 6a,b), however, bias ments E17-E32 (using the P2 scheme) produce slightly
associated with the different experiments strongly var- positive or near zero bias. Gomera had considerably
ies. At Centenar, experiments E l - E l 6 (using the PI lower bias associated with the PI scheme. This high

FIG. 7. As in Fig. 4, but for the DACC parameter (%).

JULY 2013 SANTOS-ALAMILLOS
FIG. 8. Results of the sensitivity analysis of STD (black bars), bias (gray bars), and wind direction DACC
parameter (white bars) to choice of parameterization. Mean values of these parameters, resulting from 16 experi-
ments in which each parameterization is involved, are displayed for the (a) Centenar, (b) Gomera, (c) Almirez, and
(d) Los Nietos stations.
sensitivity of bias to the PBL parameterization is con-
firmed by Fig. 8. In particular, use of PI for Centenar
leads to a - 1 0 % bias on average, whereas P2 leads to
a value near zero. In contrast, PI performs better than
P2 for the rest of the stations, although differences are
smaller than for Centenar. As with STD, the other
schemes had little influence on bias. Again, no single
experiment performed best for all stations, but ex-
periment E14 performed reasonably at Almirez and
Los Nietos (high elevations).
For DACC (Fig. 7), Gomera (between 60% and 70%)
and, especially, Los Nietos (above 75%) have the
highest values. As highlighted earher, these stations
have wind directions that are strongly conditioned by
nearby terrain morphology (Figs. 2 and 3). Therefore, it
seems that terrain morphology at these stations is rea-
sonably reproduced by WRF at 3-km spatial resolution;
this will be confirmed in the next section. Centenar and
Almirez had lower DACC values of close to 60%. The
DACC parameter shows little sensitivity to the choice of
parameterization. This is confirmed by Fig. 8. Only small
differences (below 2%) associated with the PBL are
observed. Therefore, wind direction estimation appears
to be more sensitive to the terrain representation in
ET A L . 1603
WRF than to the choice of parameterization. This
finding will be further analyzed in the next section.
To conclude, the PBL parameterization has a signifi-
cant influence on both the STD and bias, and the PI
parameterization scheme performs better overall. This
influence is highly dependent on the station and the
statistics, however. It is notable that for the Centenar
station P1/P2 provides lower/higher STD values and
higher/lower bias values.
b. Analysis of sensitivity to terrain representation
Results of the previous analysis show that the WRF
wind estimates in the study region are mainly sensitive
to the selection of PBL parameterization. As a conse-
quence, in the analysis described in this section, we only
consider variations in this parameterization, keeping
the rest of the parameterizations fixed. This approach
greatly reduces the complexity of this examination of
terrain influence. As revealed in the previous section,
none of the scheme combinations provided a clearly
better representation of both wind speed and direction
at the four stations. Nevertheless, among all experi-
ments, E15 seemed to provide the best overall estimates.
This experiment produced the lowest, or near the lowest.
1604 J O U R N A L OF A P P L I E D M E T E O R O L O G Y AND C L I M A T O L O G Y VOLUME 52

67.0 1.2

57.0
g
1 0.8
0.4
48.0 a 0
VI c -0.4
38.0
m .0.8
U
29.0 -1.2

47.0 1.2
0.8
40.0 _ 0.4

34.0 D
0

is ai -0.4

Gom
27.0 -0.8
20.0 -1.2

62.0 1.2

s (m/s)
0.8
53.0 0.4
m
44.0 a g N
0
£! -0.4
36.0 t;

Aimi
-0.8
27.0 -1.2

59.0 1.2
0.8
51.0
_ 1s 0.4
STD (°/i

42.0 0
S
let

.0.4
34.0 z -0.8

P1.3km Pl-lkm P2-9km P2.3km P2-lkm

25.0
FIG. 9. Results of the sensitivity analysis of STD to spatial resolution
of WRF setup: STD values of WRF wind speed estimates using the
E15 (Pl) and E31 (P2) configurations for three different spatial res-
olutions (9,3, and 1 km) at the (a) Centenar, (b) Gomera, (c) Almirez,
and (d) Los Nietos stations. The left-hand scale represents the STD
in meters per second, and the right-hand scale represents the STD in
percent with respect to the mean value of the observations.
values of STD and bias for all stations (Figs. 5 and 6). The
DACC score (Fig. 7) showed httle variation among ex-
periments. Therefore, we have selected E15 as a basis for
the analysis presented here. We performed six experi-
ments, involving the two physical configurations (E15 and
E31) and the three spatial resolutions (1, 3, and 9 km), to
evaluate the effect of terrain representation on the WRF
wind estimates. This implies maintaining the parameteri-
zation M2, C2, R2, and LI in both experiments, changing
only the PBL scheme. We refer to the experiment that uses
the E15 physical configuration as Pl and to the experiment
that uses the E31 configuration as P2 (Table 3).
Figures 9-11 show the STD, bias, and DACC values,
respectively, for the two physical configurations and
three different spatial resolutions. The STDs (Fig. 9)
show considerable dependence on the PBL, station, and
spatial resolution. Overall, at the four stations and for
the three spatial resolutions, the Pl scheme generated
lower STDs, with greater differences at Centenar (Fig. 9a).
Dependence on spatial resolution was much more com-
plex, however. The Centenar station showed no de-
pendence. At Gomera with the Pl scheme (Fig. 9b), slight
a -1.2
FIG. 10. As in Fig. 9, but for bias (ms~^).
improvement (about 0.2 m s^^) of the STD was obtained
by increasing spatial resolution. At Los Nietos and
Almirez, STD values were slightly lower at 9 km than at
the 3- and 1-km spatial resolutions (about 0.2ms~^).
The reasons for this last result are difficult to assess and
may be associated with error sources that are not related
to the terrain representation, such as those listed at the
end of section 3.
A general tendency to underestimate wind speed,
regardless of PBL parameterization and resolution, can
be discerned from Fig. 10. Except for Centenar station,
the use of the Pl experiment provides lower bias values.
Figure 10 also reveals a significant and complex de-
pendence of the bias on the spatial resolution. At Los
Nietos, the bias was positive at 9 km and was negative
at 3 and 1km (Fig. lOd). As shown in Table 1, WRF
overestimated station elevation at 9 km (1262 m MSL)
while underestimating it at 3 km (1013 m MSL) and 1 km
(1055 m MSL)—the DEM shows 1056 m MSL. The signs
of the biases at Los Nietos may be caused by this over-
estimation/underestimation of station elevation. Since
this station is in a fiat area with low topographic com-
plexity, according to Jiménez and Dudhia (2012), a
positive bias (about lms~^ at 10 m AGL) is expected
because of an unresolved drag effect of the terrain. Our
results are compatible with the existence of a small
positive bias of substantially lower than 1 m s~^ This is
mainly because the measuring elevation considered in
JULY 2013 S A N T O S - A L A M I L L O S ET A L .
Pl-3km P2-9km P2-3km
FIG. 11. As in Fig. 9, but for wind direction DACC parameter (%). by nearby terrain morphology. The location of Los
this evaluation is 40 m AGL, at which height the drag
effect should be much lower than it is at 10 m AGL.
Results for Gomera (Fig. 10b) clearly show the effect
of elevation misrepresentation of mountains and hills on
the wind estimates. This is a hilltop station, and WRF
estimates of station elevation (Table 1) range from
405 m MSL (9-km resolution) to 515 m MSL (1-km
resolution)—the DEM gives 640 m MSL. As a conse-
quence, the station has a negative bias in both the PI and
P2 experiments that decreases in magnitude with in-
creasing spatial resolution. At Almirez (Fig. 10c) in the
foothill area, the elevation misrepresentation effect is
also evident. At 9-km resolution, station elevation de-
rived from the WRF was 1052 m MSL, which is consid-
erably lower than the reference DEM elevation of
1195 m MSL. This results in the negative bias that is seen
in Fig. 10c (about -0.4m s^^). Using the 3- and 1-km
spatial resolutions, however, the WRF station elevations
are close to the DEM value, and only a slight positive
bias (about 0.2 m s~^) is observed. Centenar station, lo-
cated above a smooth hill, presents low topographic
complexity (Fig. 2a and Fig. 3a). Elevations from WRF
vary from 229 m at 9 km to 253 m MSL at 1 and 3 km; the
DEM indicates 236 m MSL. Results in Fig. 10a indicate
a tendency for WRF to underestimate wind speed at this
1605
station. This underestimation is clearly observed at
9 km, for which the station elevation from WRF is close
to actual. At 1 and 3 km, the negative bias is marginally
less. This reduction is probably caused by a compensat-
ing effect in the wind speed estimates that is associated
with the overestimation of station elevation (about
17 m) at these spatial resolutions.
Several conclusions can be drawn from Fig. 11 re-
garding DACC. To aid interpretation of the results.
Fig. 12 presents wind direction distributions from WRF,
using PI at the three spatial resolutions. The observed
distribution is also shown. The DACC estimates show
a small but significant dependence on the PBL param-
eterization. The PI scheme provides DACC values at
Centenar at 1-km spatial resolution that are about 3%
higher (Fig. 11a). On the other hand, P2 provides better
DACC values at Gomera; the differences reach 8% at
1-km spatial resolution (Fig. lib). For the other stations,
differences are smaller. There are notable differences
among stations in the accuracy of wind direction esti-
mates. The highest DACC values were observed for Los
Nietos, and the lowest were observed for Centenar. The
spatial resolution had a relevant infiuence on DACC,
especially for Los Nietos station (Fig. lid). As high-
lighted in section 2, this station presents low wind di-
rection variability, with this direction highly conditioned
Nietos station, in the middle of a valley (Fig. 2d and Figs.
3p,t) clearly modulates the wind direction distribution.
The valley morphology at this station seems reasonably
represented at 3 and 1 km but not at 9-km resolution
(Figs. 3p-s). As a result, wind direction distribution was
reasonably reproduced at 3 and 1km (Figs. 12m,o,p),
and the DACC parameter is considerable larger at these
two spatial resolutions (Fig. lid). Gomera (Fig. 2b) and
Almirez (Fig. 2c) present a low dependence of the
DACC on the spatial resolution and also show low wind
direction variability (Fig. 12). Unlike the case of Los
Nietos, however, the three spatial resolutions provide
similar results in terms of wind direction distribution
(Figs. 12f-h, j-1). As highlighted in section 2, these two
stations present the highest topographic complexity
among the four analyzed. It seems that the terrain fea-
tures that constrain the wind direction variability at
these two stations are so complex that they are not
properly reproduced in the WRF, even using the 1-km
spatial resolution. Therefore, low DACC values, and
a weak dependence of this parameter on the spatial
resolution, are found for both stations. Centenar had the
worst DACC values (Fig. 11a), with little dependence
on WRF spatial resolution. At this station with low to-
pographic complexity, terrain morphology had little
effect on the wind direction distribution (Figs. 3a,e).
1606 J O U R N A L OF A P P L I E D M E T E O R O L O G Y AND C L I M A T O L O G Y VOLUME 52

Centenar
I [0.0 : 2.0]
I [2.0:4.0]
I [4.0 : 6.0]
I [6.0 : 8.0]
I [8.0 : 10.0]
I [10.0 : 12.0]
I [12.0 : inf]

Gomera
[0.0 : 2.5]
[2.5 : 5.0]
[5.0:7.5]
[7.5 : 10.0]
[10.0: 12.5J
[12.5 : 15.0]
[15.0 : inf]

Almirez
^ [0.0: 2.0]
^ [2.0: 4.0]
^m [4.0 : 6.0]
• • [6.0 :8.0]
[ZZl [8.0 : 10.0]
^m [10.0 : 12.0]
^m [12.0 : inf]

Los Nietos
I [0.0 : 2.0]
I [2.0 : 4.0]
I [4.0 : 6.0]
I [6.0 : 8.0]
] [8.0 : 10.0]
I [10.0 : 12.0]
I [12.0 : inf]

FIG. 12. Modeled [from the best-performing WRF configuration (E15) and using different spatial resolutions] and observed wind
direction distributions, at the 40-m AGL measurement elevation of four stations. Shown are the (a) observed and (b)-(d) modeled (using
9-, 3-, and 1-km spatial resolutions, respectively) wind distributions for the Centenar station. Also shown are plots as in (a)-(d), but for the
(e)-(h) Gomera, (i)-(l) Almirez, and (m)-(p) Los Nietos stations. The values in the circle indicate the percentage of observations; the
color scale at right indicates ranges of wind speed (m s~').

Therefore, differences in terrain representation at the
three WRF resolutions (Figs. 3b-d) had little effect on
the wind distribution estimates (Figs. 12b-d).
To sum up, from Figs. 9-12, it is concluded that the
WRF setup that is based on experiment E15 (Pl) and
1-km spatial resolution provides the best wind speed and
direction estimates overall at the four stations. Never-
theless, there are significant differences among stations in
the reliability of these estimates. The STD ranged from
about 2 (Centenar) to 2.8 (Gomera) m s ~ \ The bias was
from -0.4 (Centenar) to 0.3 (Almirez) m s~\ and DACC
ranged from about 57% at Centenar to 85% at Los Nietos.
Wind direction distribution was fairly reproduced at
Los Nietos (Figs. 12m-p). The predominant southeast
wind direction was clearly reproduced by the model,
although there is overestimation of values for the north
through west directions. As highlighted earlier, this
predominant wind direction can be explained by the
channeling effect of surrounding topography (Figs. 2d
and 3p,t). The wind distribution was also reasonably re-
produced at Gomera station (Figs. 12e,h), but with a bias
of -25° toward the southeast. At Almirez (Fig. 121), the
principal wind directions were fairly well reproduced,
with no bias; not so the distribution. The model indicated
more cases than were observed in the south through
east directions and fewer cases than were observed in
the north through west directions. The poorest esti-
mation of the wind direction distribution is for Centenar
(Figs. 12a,d). The model was able to estimate some of the
predominant wind directions, but some of the modeled
directions are not found in the observed data.
5. Summary and conclusions
In this work, we evaluated the relative roles of pa-
rameterization choice and terrain representation in the
JULY 2013 S A N T O S - A L A M I L L O S ET A L .
Weather Research and Forecasting mesoscale model, as
they pertain to regional wind resource assessment. In
a flrst part, to evaluate sensitivity of WRF wind esti-
mates to parameterization choice, 32 conflgurations
(experiments) of the microphysies, cumulus, planetary
boundary layer, or shortwave and longwave radiation
parameterization schemes were assessed. These experi-
ments, with 3-km spatial resolution and 1-h output fre-
quency, were conducted for the four seasons in 2005. In
a second part, to evaluate the sensitivity of the wind es-
timates to terrain representation in WRF, experiments
were conducted with three different spatial resolutions—
9,3, and 1 km. The study region was Andalusia (southern
Spain). Although relatively small, this region is charac-
terized by varied topographic, geographic, and weather
conditions that made the evaluation especially chal-
lenging. Estimates were obtained with data collected at
four stations, the locations of which are representative
of different climatic conditions and varied topographic
complexity and morphology in the study region. The
four stations provided hourly wind speed and direction
data at 40 m AGL. The WRF estimates were assessed
using different statistics that represented both wind
speed and wind direction. The standard deviation of
residuals between observed and modeled wind speed
and the bias were used to evaluate wind speed pre-
dictions. For evaluating wind direction, we used an ac-
curacy parameter (DACC) that considers the percentage
of times for which the circular distance between observed
and modeled wind direction is less than 30°.
Results of the flrst analysis show STD values of the
wind speed estimates to be sensitive mostly to the PBL
parameterization choice. For some of the stations, dif-
ferences up to 10% were observed, depending on the
PBL parameterization. Sensitivity of the wind speed
STD values to other parameterizations was not signif-
icant. Nevertheless, some combinations of schemes
(experiments) performed better than others. These
combinations unfortunately differed among stations.
The bias values of wind speed showed considerable de-
pendence on the station and choice of PBL parameter-
ization. Values ranged from - 1 5 % to 10%, depending
on the station and experiment. The DACC values
showed a large sensitivity only to the choice of the PBL
parameterization scheme, although only small differ-
ences (below 2%) were observed. On the other hand,
there were substantial differences among stations in
DACC values, indicating that WRF wind direction es-
timates are highly sensitive to terrain characteristics.
Among all 32 experiments, experiment number 15,
which used the YSU (PBL), Morrison two-moment
(Morrison-2M) (MPH), Grell-3D (CMS), Rapid Radia-
tive Transfer Model (RRTM) (LWR), and RRTM GCM
1607
version (RRTMG) (SWR) parameterization schemes,
performed the best. Since results of the flrst analysis
showed that WRF wind estimates in the study region
were mainly sensitive to the PBL parameterization se-
lection, only variations of this parameterization were
considered in the second analysis. Six experiments were
conducted, with three spatial resolutions (1,3, and 9 km)
and two PBL parameterizations. The remaining pa-
rameterizations were chosen on the basis of the best-
performing experiment from the flrst analysis. Although
the spatial conflguration and, in particular, the nesting
approaches in the flrst and second part of this study were
different, we consider that results from the flrst part are
still applicable for the analysis of the second part, mainly
because we believe that the weak influence that the
choice of the MPH, CMS, SWR, and LWR parameter-
izations schemes showed on the wind estimates in the
flrst analysis should not change signiflcantly just by
changing the nesting approach.
In the second analysis, STDs showed a dependence on
the PBL parameterization, with the PI (YSU) scheme
performing better (differences up to 0.3 ms~^). On the
other hand, the influence of the spatial resolution on
the STD values was found to be considerably weak
and highly dependent on the evaluation station. Biases
in the WRF wind speed estimates were very sensitive
to model spatial resolution. This was mainly because higher
resolution improved the representation of terrain eleva-
tion. The sign of the bias depended on terrain morphology
and the spatial resolution, but absolute values tended to be
much higher with coarser spatial resolution (9 km).
Physical conflguration was found to have little im-
pact on wind direction distribution estimates. These
estimates proved to be more sensitive to the repre-
sentation of terrain morphology around the station
than to the model spatial resolution. In this regard, for
stations that are located in areas of high topographic
complexity, the use of 3- or even 9-km grid resolution in
the model may provide similar (low) accuracy in the
wind direction estimates to that from 1-km grid reso-
lution. In other cases, when the terrain is not so com-
plex, the increment in the spatial resolution provide
a substantial improvement in the accuracy of the wind
direction estimates.
Experiment E15 at 1-km grid resolution provided the
overall best estimates of wind speed and direction at
the four stations. Nevertheless, at the stations where the
terrain morphology and elevations are fairly reproduced
at 3-km grid resolution (Almirez and Los Nietos), re-
sults for this resolution are similar to the results obtained
for the 1-km grid resolution. In addition, there were
signiflcant differences among stations in the reliability
of these estimates. The STD ranged from about 2 to
1608 J O U R N A L OF A P P L I E D M E T E O R O L O G Y AND CLIMATOLOGY VOLUME 52

more than 2.8 m s . The bias was from - 0.4 to 0.3 m s Ris0-PhD-84(EN), 104 pp. [Available online at http://orbit.
and the DACC ranged from approximately 57% to dtu.dk/files/10246050/Ris_PhD_84.pdf.]
85%. Wind direction distribution was reliably repro- Esteban-Parra, M. J., F. Rodrigo, and Y. Castro-Diez, 1998: Spatial
and temporal patterns of precipitation in Spain for the period
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marked terrain morphology features (viz., the Los Farr, T. G., and Coauthors, 2007: The shuttle radar topography mis-
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at some stations the model showed bias in the pre- Fernández, J., J. P. Montávez, J. Saenz, J. F. González-Rouco,
dominant directions, and at other stations it output wind and E. Zorita, 2007: Sensitivity of the MM5 mesoscale model
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Acknowledgments. The Consejería de Innovación, Frank, H. P., O. Rathmann, N. G. Mortensen, and L. Landberg,
Ciencia y Empresa (CICE) of Junta de Andalucía (Spain) 2001: The numerical wind atlas—The KAMM/WAsP method.
(Project P07-RNM-02872) and FEDER funds financed Ris0 National Laboratory Tech. Rep. Ris0-R-1252(EN), 60 pp.
[Available online at http://www.risoe.dk/rispubl/VEA/veapdf/
this study. This work has been also supported by the ris-r-1252.pdf.]
TEP-220 research group. The authors thank Gamesa GE Energy, 2010: Western wind and solar integration study. Na-
Co. for providing the wind measurements. We also tional Renewable Energy Laboratory Tech. Rep. NREL/SR-
thank the reviewers for their very helpful comments. 550-47434, 536 pp. [Available online at http://www.nrel.gov/
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