A multi-scale model with an atmosphere - soil - vegetation coupling to explore the effect of wind turbines on near-surface meteorological conditions

Abstract Numerical simulations, satellite measurements, and field measurements campaigns have demonstrated that wind turbine wakes can lead to changes in near-ground air temperature and humidity. However, in high-resolution LES simulations aimed at reproducing and better understanding these phenomena, the incident flows and surface conditions used are often idealized, and therefore diverging from the real-world conditions faced by wind turbines. In this study, we propose an online coupling between the realistic atmospheric model Meso-NH, a soil–vegetation–atmosphere transfer model, and an Actuator Disk with Rotation. The characteristics of the generated atmosphere and the meteorological variations induced by the wind turbine are validated using measurements from the VERTEX campaign conducted on a single 2MW wind turbine. The results reveal wake-induced variations in temperature and humidity near the ground under stable and unstable conditions, while no significant changes are observed for neutral conditions.