Meteorological tower wind shear characteristics, vertical wind speed profile, and surface roughness analysis near the coastline of Chennai

Extrapolation of wind data is required to estimate wind speeds at high altitudes. Doing so requires an essential understanding of wind shear characteristics related to the location or region. An analysis was carried out from the profile of meteorological data collected from a 50-m tower at Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology which is near the coastline of Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India during the years 2010-2014. In this work, the analyzed data collected from an instrumented meteorological tower included the wind shear characteristics, vertical wind speed profile, and surface roughness. The characteristics of wind shear exponent at the tower were investigated with emphasis on temporal (diurnal and monthly) variation and occurrence distribution. The power law was derived at this location and it was in good agreement with the real surface layer wind profile near the smooth coastal terrain. There was a significant influence of the land-sea interface that showed a lower wind shear coefficient during sea breeze conditions than in land breeze.