Wind fluctuations over the North Sea

• Published in: International journal of climatology Vol. 31; no. 11; pp. 1584 - 1595
• Main Authors: Vincent, Claire L., Pinson, Pierre, Giebela, Gregor
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 01-09-2011; Wiley
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Earth, ocean, space; Energy; Exact sciences and technology; External geophysics; Hilbert‐Huang transform; Marine; Meteorology; Natural energy; North Sea; spectral analysis; spectral gap; Wind energy; wind fluctuations; Winds and their effects; Northeast Atlantic; North Atlantic; North Sea; Atlantic Ocean; ANE, North Sea; time series analysis; Westerly wind; Windfarm; atmospheric precipitation; Wind velocity; spectral analysis; wind energy; North Sea; Hilbert transformation; Easterly wind; Hilbert-Huang transform; wind fluctuations; fluctuations; spectral gap; Observation data; seasonal variations
• ISSN: 0899-8418; 1097-0088; 1097-0088
• DOI: 10.1002/joc.2175

Climatological patterns in wind speed fluctuations with periods of 1 min to 10 h are analysed using data from a meteorological mast in the Danish North Sea. Fluctuations on these time scales are of particular relevance to the effective management of the power supply from large wind farms. The Hilbert‐Huang transform (HHT) is shown to be an effective tool for analysing long time series of wind speed observations, as it describes the time‐evolving spectral information in the time series. By binning and averaging the time‐evolving spectrum, the average spectral behaviour of the wind speed under a certain class of conditions can be found. Here, the HHT is applied to create conditional spectra which demonstrate patterns in the occurrence of severe wind variability. It is shown that wind fluctuations over the North Sea are more severe for westerly flow than for easterly flow, and that severe fluctuations are often observed in the vicinity of precipitation. The most severe wind fluctuations occur in the autumn and winter seasons, and are slightly more common when the pressure tendency is rising. Further, it is found that the wind is more variable for atmospherically unstable conditions than for stable conditions. Copyright © 2010 Royal Meteorological Society