Journal of Energy Bioscience 2012, Vol.3, No.1, 1-12
5
Table 1 Long term wind measurement stations installed by IMD in Himachal Prades
Station
Long (E)
Latitude (N)
Elevation (m)
Wind data availability (period, source)
Nahan
76
° 44'
30
° 24'
959
1977-1998,
IMD
Sundernagar
76
° 88'
31
° 53'
861
1981-1997,
IMD
Chamba
76
° 07'
32
° 34'
996
1977-1990,
IMD
Simla CPRI
77
° 10'
31
° 06'
2 202
1989-2003,
IMD
Dalhousie
75
° 58'
32
° 32'
1 959
1951-1988,
IMD
Dharmshala
76
° 23'
32
° 16'
1 211
1952-1998,
IMD
Manali
77
° 10'
32
° 16'
2 039
1968-1998,
IMD
Bilaspur
76
° 40'
31
° 15'
587
1956-1992,
IMD
Bhuntar
77
° 10'
31
° 50'
1 096
1960-2003,
IMD
Shimla
77
° 10'
31
° 06'
2 202
1933-1992,
IMD
Kyelong
77
° 04'
32
° 35'
3 348
+
1978,
IMD
Mandi
76
° 58'
31
° 43'
761
1958-1967 (
Ramachandra et al., 1997
）
Dharmpur
77
° 01'
30
° 54'
1 986
+
Period unknown, IMD
globe furnished by the RETScreen project. This had
an estimated uncertainty of Root Mean Square (RMS)
1.3
m/s that is 20-25% relative to mean monthly
values (NASA, 2012,
/
documents/SSE6Methodology.pdf). However, studies
have shown that NASA-SSE wind data exceeds the
25%
error margin even in plain regions when
compared to surface measurements (Kumar and
Prasad, 2010). The SSE modelers agree that 1°×1°
spatial resolution wind data is not an accurate
predictor of local conditions in regions with
significant topographic variation. The NASA-SSE
wind speed data were accessed at
.
nasa.gov/sse/.
3.2.2.
NOAA-CIRES
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(
NOAA) and University of Colorado CIRES Climate
Diagnostics Center synthesised comprehensive global
atmospheric circulation dataset as per their 20
th
Century Reanalysis project. NOAA-CIRES 20
th
Century Reanalysis
Version 2 (Reanalysis is a
scientific method for developing a comprehensive
record of how weather and climate are changing over
time wherein observations and a numerical model that
simulates one or more aspects of the Earth system are
combined objectively to generate a synthesized
estimate of the state of the system (Reanalysis
Intercomparison and Observations, 2012)).
NOAA-CIRES 20
th
Century Reanalysis Version 2
dataset provides estimates of global tropospheric and
stratospheric variability since 1871 at six-hourly
temporal resolution. These were derived based on
surface and sea level pressure measurements. Monthly
sea-surface temperatures and sea-ice distributions
were considered as boundary conditions in an
Ensemble Kalman Filter data assimilation with support
of certain parameterizations and global numerical
weather prediction (NWP) model (NOAA, 2012,
/). The
NWP model generates numerical simulations of the
global atmospheric state, which are reanalysed and
stored. However, NWP data are generally used as
input of models which generate low resolution grids
so as to infer the near-surface wind field. This process,
called downscaling, is performed using statistical and
dynamical considerations (Aguera-Perez et al., 2012).
Global wind speeds of 138 years (1871~2008) at
2
°×2° spatial resolution were accessed at
/.
3.2.3
CRU
Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of
East Anglia maintains climatic average datasets of
meteorological variables. This includes wind speeds
for the period of 1961~1990 compiled from different
sources with inter and intra variable consistency
