The World of Wind Atlases – Wind Atlases of the World |
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The World of Wind Atlases – Wind Atlases of the World |
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This site is dedicated to the world of wind atlases, the wind atlas methodology and wind atlases of the world. The site is established and maintained by members of the Wind Energy Division at Risø DTU in Roskilde, Denmark. Some wind atlases are available from Risø DTU: the European Wind Atlas, the Russian Wind Atlas and the Wind Atlas for the Gulf of Suez 1991-95. All other wind atlases must be obtained directly from the publishing institution. A list of major national and regional wind atlas studies is given here. Other comprehensive wind investigations and databases are listed here. |
Most people think of an 'atlas' as a book or bound collection of maps, sometimes with supplementary illustrations and graphic analyses. However, this is not exactly the way we think of an atlas here.
We use a more general meaning of the word atlas: "An atlas is a volume of tables, charts, or plates that systematically illustrates a particular subject" − where the subject in a 'wind atlas' is the wind climate of a particular region or country. Another definition often used is: "A wind atlas is a systematic and comprehensive collection of regional wind climates (RWC) derived by the wind atlas methodology".
So, an 'atlas containing wind maps' and a 'wind atlas' are two different things − even though the wind atlas could contain some maps...
The wind atlas methodology in general was first developed and described in detail for the European Wind Atlas.
Wind atlas methodologies makes it possible to transfer detailed information about the mean wind climate from one location (the predictor site) to another (the predicted site). The predictor site can be a meteorological station / wind-monitoring mast, or it can be a grid point in a mesoscale modelling domain. In the latter case, one may think of the model grid point as a virtual meteorological station. The predicted site often corresponds to the location and height of a specific wind turbine generator.
Observational wind atlas methodology (predictor is a real-world met. station)
Numerical wind atlas methodology (predictor is a virtual met. station)
