Dutch Offshore Wind Atlas Validation against Cabauw Meteomast Wind Measurements

The Dutch Offshore Wind Atlas (DOWA) is validated against wind speed and direction measurements from the Cabauw meteorological mast for a 10-year period and at heights between 10 m and 200 m. The validation results are compared to the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) North Sea Wind (KNW) atlas. It is found that the average difference (bias) between DOWA wind speeds and those measured at Cabauw varies for the different heights between −0.1 m/s to 0.3 m/s. Significant differences between DOWA and KNW are only found at altitudes of 10 m and 20 m, where KNW performs better. For heights above 20 m, there is no significant difference between DOWA and KNW with respect to the 10-year averaged wind speed bias. The diurnal cycle is better captured by DOWA compared to KNW, and the hourly correlation is slightly improved. In addition, a comparison with the global European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) ERA-Interim and ERA5 reanalyses (used for KNW and DOWA, respectively) is made, highlighting the added skill provided by downscaling those global datasets with the weather model HARMONIE.