Spatial Variability of Sea State in the German Bight and Influence of Offshore Wind Farms

ABSTRACT Offshore wind farms are growing worldwide and increase the source of renewable energy. However, as the extent and density of offshore wind farms increase, there is growing importance to understand the interactions with physical systems and the marine environment, in particular, the sea state. This study presents an analysis of airborne data from the flight projects WIPAFF and X‐Wakes which took place in the German Bight, examining the effects of wind farm wakes on the sea surface and the possible interaction between atmospheric and sea surface wakes. By clustering the data, this study identifies patterns for the sea surface wake. For stable atmospheric stratification, the sea surface wake extends up to several tens of kilometers, while during unstable conditions, the sea surface wake is very short or absent. In all analyzed cases, the length of the atmospheric wake was longer than the length of the sea surface wake.