Impacts of tropical and extratropical cyclones on future offshore wind energy over the U.S. Atlantic Coast

This presentation will discuss a recently funded project, by the Department of Energy Wind Energy Technology Office, focusing on impacts of tropical cyclone and extratropical cyclone on offshore wind energy over the east coast of the United States. The ultimate goal is to provide robust risk information for offshore wind turbines considering climate change. We will discuss different spatial scales and techniques for modeling the extreme weather (in particular hurricanes). These include: (1) Earth system modeling validation concerning the seasonal/subseasonal variability, and the synoptic scale environment for tropical cyclones; (2) regional scale modeling development concerning the multi-way interactions between atmosphere, ocean and waves; (3) micro-scale (wind plant and turbine) downscaling using numerical modeling and machine learning/artificial intelligence techniques. Specifically, we will present model performance in tropical cyclones at both Earth system scale and regional scale. For the Earth system scale, we focus on climatological statistics; while for the regional scale, we will present the performance of our newly-developed fully-coupled atmosphere-ocean-wave model and apply it to investigate the impacts of wave-atmosphere interaction through changes in surface roughness; impacts of wave-currents, and non-breaking wave-induced mixing on hurricane characteristics. In addition, we will explore the climate change impacts on these interactions and on the characteristics of hurricanes. Preliminary results from meso-to-micro scale coupling or downscaling for hurricanes will also be discussed.