Expected Recurrence of Extreme Winds in Northwestern Sahara and Associated Uncertainties

Elena García Bustamante, J. Fidel González Rouco, Jorge Navarro, Etor E. Lucio Eceiza and Cristina Rojas Labanda
Additional contact information
Elena García Bustamante: Departmento de Energía, Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas, Medioambientales y Tecnologicas (CIEMAT), 28040 Madrid, Spain
J. Fidel González Rouco: Department Física de la Tierra, Astronomía y Astrofísica, Universidad Complutense de Madrid-Instituto de Geociencias (CSIC-UCM), 28040 Madrid, Spain
Jorge Navarro: Departmento de Energía, Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas, Medioambientales y Tecnologicas (CIEMAT), 28040 Madrid, Spain
Etor E. Lucio Eceiza: Institute of Meteorology, Freie Universtität Berlin, 12165 Berlin, Germany
Cristina Rojas Labanda: Department Física de la Tierra, Astronomía y Astrofísica, Universidad Complutense de Madrid-Instituto de Geociencias (CSIC-UCM), 28040 Madrid, Spain

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 21, 1-32

Abstract: Estimating the probability of the occurrence of hazardous winds is crucial for their impact in human activities; however, this is inherently affected by the shortage of observations. This becomes critical in poorly sampled regions, such as the northwestern Sahara, where this work is focused. The selection of any single methodological variant contributes with additional uncertainty. To gain robustness in the estimates, we expand the uncertainty space by applying a large body of methodologies. The methodological uncertainty is constrained afterward by keeping only the reliable experiments. In doing so, we considerably narrow the uncertainty associated with the wind return levels. The analysis suggest that not necessarily all methodologies are equally robust. The highest 10-min speed (wind gust) for a return period of 50 years is about 45 ms ? 1 (56 ms ? 1 ). The intensity of the expected extreme winds is closely related to orography. The study is based on wind and wind gust observations that were collected and quality controlled for the specific purposes herein. We also make use of a 12-year high-resolution regional simulation to provide simulation-based wind return level maps that endorse the observation-based results. Such an exhaustive methodological sensitivity analysis with a long high-resolution simulation over this region was lacking in the literature.

Keywords: wind extremes; methodological uncertainty; wind return levels; Generalized Extreme Value Distribution; regional simulation; northwestern Sahara (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/21/6913/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/21/6913/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:21:p:6913-:d:661448

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().