Near-ground meteorological variations induce by a single wind turbine in a realistic highly stratified stable atmosphere.

Numerical simulations, satellite observations, and field campaigns have demonstrated that wind turbine wakes can alter near-ground air temperature and humidity [Baidya Roy, 2004; Xie, 2017; Wu, 2023; Zhou, 2012; Smith, 2013; Rajewski, 2013; Takle, 2014; Armstrong, 2016; Archer, 2019]. In the wind turbine community, high-resolution large eddy simulations of wind turbine wakes often rely on idealized incident flows and surface conditions, which differ from real-world conditions. Since wind turbine wakes and near-ground air properties are highly sensitive to atmospheric and surface conditions, we employ an online coupling between a realistic atmospheric model, a soil–vegetation–atmosphere transfer model, and an aerodynamic technique based on body forces for the wake of wind turbine following the recommendations of Porté-Agel (2019). The ability of the multi-scale setup to reproduce realistic atmospheric conditions, as well as its capability to reproduce meteorological variations induced by wind turbines, has been validated (under review [Boumendil, 2025] and [Boumendil, 2024]) using measurements from the VERTEX campaign on a 2MW wind turbine turbine located on the East Coast of Delaware, USA [Archer, 2019; Wu, 2021]. Here, we extend this validated setup to investigate a highly stratified stable atmosphere, where wind turbine impacts are expected to be most pronounced.

We employed the atmospheric model Meso-NH [Lac, 2018], initialized and forced with analysis files. Using a grid-nesting configuration, we simulate scales ranging from the mesoscale, capturing diurnal cycles, to the microscale, resolving the flow behavior around wind turbines while accounting for realistic features such as orography, surface cover, clouds, and radiation.

An online coupling with the SURFEX [Masson, 2013] soil–vegetation transfer model is employed to finely model surface properties such as albedo, surface fluxes, ground roughness, or leaf area index depending on land cover. A high-resolution surface database, combining data from OpenStreetMap with the ECOCLIMAP nomenclature [Champeaux, 2005] is uses as inputs for the surface modelling platform SURFEX. Additionally, the effects of wakes from trees [Aumond, 2013] and urban buildings [Schoetter, 2020] were incorporated through added drag forces. The wake of the wind turbine is modeled using an Actuator Disk with Rotation, where rotation speed, blade pitch angle, and rotor direction are updated during the simulation by a controller.

In the highly stratified stable atmosphere, Meso-NH captures the strong near-ground temperature inversion and the wind veer within the rotor area. The interaction between the wake of the wind turbine and the stable atmosphere results in pronounced temperature variations, with warming in the lower rotor area and cooling above. This case study highlights the ability of the model to investigate wind turbine interactions with realistic atmospheric conditions, paving the way for further case studies.