Journal of Wind Engineering & Industrial Aerodynamics 164 (2017) 13–21

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Journal of Wind Engineering

and Industrial Aerodynamics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jweia

Observational study of power-law approximation of wind profiles within an MARK

urban boundary layer for various wind conditions
⁎
Hideki Kikumotoa, , Ryozo Ookaa, Hirofumi Sugawarab, Jongyeon Limc
a
Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, 4-6-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8505, Japan
b
Earth and Ocean Sciences, National Defense Academy of Japan, 1-10-20 Hashirimizu, Yokosuka, Kanagawa 239-8686, Japan
c
School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan

A R T I C L E I N F O A BS T RAC T

Keywords: This paper investigates the accuracy and limitations of wind profile modeling using the power-law (PL),
Wind profile especially for low speed conditions in which air and thermal pollution can prevail. A Doppler lidar system and
Urban boundary layer ultrasonic anemometer were installed to measure wind profiles and turbulence statistics in the urban boundary
Doppler lidar layer of Tokyo, Japan over seven months. The wind speeds at a height of 67.5 m (ub) at average intervals of
Power law
10 min were < 6 m/s for 80% of the observation period. For low wind speeds, the difference in wind direction
Low wind speed
with height is significant, making it difficult to determine the prevailing wind direction. The PL could be used to
model the wind profiles for high wind speeds (ub > 6 m/s), whereby the power-law index (PLI) converges to
0.25. Although the PL model can be used for an ensemble-averaged profile composed of all profiles from the
observed period, the accuracy of the PL decreases for profiles with low speeds and short average time intervals.
The PLI on average decreases to ~0.21 for low speeds and shows diurnal changes with small PLIs during the
daytime. This research quantitatively discusses the application limits of the PL for wind profiles under low speed
conditions.

1. Introduction common methods in wind engineering for expressing the relationship

between wind speed and height above ground (z):
Modeling the behavior of a flow approaching an area of interest is ⎛ z ⎞α
one of the most important aspects of wind engineering. The analysis is UPL (z ) = Un ⎜ ⎟ ,
⎝ zn ⎠ (1)
either based on physical or numerical modeling of features such as the
profile of mean velocity, as well as other turbulence statistics, which where zn is the reference height, Un is the reference speed at zn, and α
significantly influence wind characteristics in the analysis domain. For is the power-law index (PLI). Although the theoretical foundation is not
this reason, wind engineers and climatologists seek a model that can as clear as for the logarithmic law, past observations have shown the
illustrate wind behavior in the atmospheric boundary layer (Counihan, potential of PL in modeling wind profiles in the atmospheric boundary
1975; Davenport, 1960; Holtslag, 1984; Hsu, 1982; Hsu et al., 1994; layers above urban terrains (Counihan, 1975; Li et al., 2010; Tamura
Panofsky and Dutton, 1984). Several theoretical and empirical models et al., 1999, 2001, 2007).
such as logarithmic law, power law, and the Deaves-Harris model have In wind engineering, PL was originally proposed for wind profiles of
been applied to describe mean velocity profiles in atmospheric bound- extremely high speed for use in designing the wind load in structural
ary layers (Davenport, 1960; Deaves, 1981; Drew et al., 2013; Li et al., engineering (Davenport, 1960). High speed and neutrality were thus
2010). Because the roughness of terrain and atmospheric stability are prerequisites for the use of this model. In this respect, a unique
major factors affecting the characteristics of wind profiles (Monin and parameter in the PL, the PLI, is recommended and determined
Obukhov, 1954), previous research has investigated the relationships according to the surface roughness of the terrain (Architectural
between wind profile model parameters and terrain roughness or Institute of Japan, 2004). However, because the PL is a simple
atmospheric stability (Counihan, 1975; Irwin, 1979; Kanda et al., mathematical expression and can be applied to a relatively large range
2013; Tamura et al., 2001). of heights compared to the logarithmic law (Counihan, 1975), the PL
The power law (PL), described in Eq. (1), is one of the most has been employed in many research fields and under various condi-

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected] (H. Kikumoto).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jweia.2017.02.003
Received 25 March 2016; Received in revised form 26 January 2017; Accepted 3 February 2017
0167-6105/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
H. Kikumoto et al. Journal of Wind Engineering & Industrial Aerodynamics 164 (2017) 13–21

Nomenclature ub wind speed for the lowest DLS level (z=67.5 m)

U measured horizontal wind speed
ECM eddy covariance method Un reference speed in the PL
DLS Doppler lidar system UPL speed expressed by the PL
PL power law U averaged speed along the DLS height levels
PLI power-law index wdb wind direction for the lowest DLS level (z=67.5 m)
UA ultrasonic anemometer z height above the ground
L the Monin-Obukhov length L zn reference height above the ground in the PL
R2 coefficient of determination α value of the power-law index

tions. For example, the PL has been used in the analysis of environ- conditions related to the speed and averaging time.
mental problems such as wind environment, air pollution (Li and
Meroney, 1983; Pavageau and Schatzmann, 1999; Tominaga et al.,
2008), and wind power potential (Emeis, 2014; Farrugia, 2003; 2. Observation site and instrumentation
Peterson and Hennessey, 1977; Wharton and Lundquist, 2012). In
such cases, the high speed and neutrality of the boundary layer is not Fig. 1 shows aerial maps of the observation site and its surround-
assured and the accuracy of the PL can change depending on the ings. The DLS was installed on a building rooftop at the Institute of
conditions. Previous studies have revealed the dependence of the PLI Industrial Science (University of Tokyo, Meguro-ku, Tokyo, Japan;
on the wind speed, atmospheric stability, and the height and time of the latitude: 35°40′N, longitude: 139°41′E, altitude: 40 m). Velocities were
day at which the PL is evaluated (Farrugia, 2003; Hanafusa et al., 1986; measured between 67.5 and 527.5 m high at 20 m intervals (24 levels).
Hussain, 2002; Irwin, 1979; Touma, 1977; Zoumakis, 1993; Zoumakis The UA was positioned on a tower at Tokai University (Shibuya-ku,
and Kelessis, 1991). Tokyo, Japan) at a ground height of 52 m. The distance between the
Nevertheless, the applicability of the PL is typically discussed for sites was about 600 m, with no undulating terrain between them, and
ensemble-averaged profiles derived from a large number of samples. their difference in altitude was 2 m. The buildings surrounding the site
Even though the ensemble-averaged profile can reflect an average wind are mainly residential areas with a homogeneous geometry. However,
condition, the profile is idealistic and sometimes differs significantly there are two large commercial areas with a high density of sky-
from an instantaneous wind profile under actual wind conditions that scrapers, located 2 km east-southeast (Shibuya area) and 3 km north-
are affected by many disturbances. With the development of techniques northeast (Shinjuku area) of the DLS site. A large green area is also
related to wind engineering, the demand is increasing for the simula-
tion of more realistic wind situations with a high accuracy. Although
new methods have been developed for analyzing realistic wind situa-
tions, such as multi-scale modeling (Baklanov and Nuterman, 2009;
Schlünzen et al., 2011; Yamada and Koike, 2011), the conventional
method that uses the PL or other empirical profile models is still valid
due to high computational efficiency. This study therefore focuses on
the following questions: firstly, how well can the PL model instanta-
neous and real (not idealistic ensemble-averaged) wind profiles; and
secondly, how accurate is the PL for low speed conditions in the
absence of a dominant force driving the wind. Because the accuracy of
the PL for realistic wind conditions has not been sufficiently discussed,
it is necessary to investigate the applicability and accuracy of the PL for
modeling profiles under various different speeds and intervals of
averaged time.
Conventional wind measurements are conducted using anem-
ometers located on a tower (Hanafusa et al., 1986; Holtslag, 1984; Li
et al., 2010). However, it can be very difficult to find an appropriate
location for towers in urban areas and their construction can be very
expensive. Following recent developments in remote sensing techni-
ques, remote measurements using Doppler sodar and Doppler lidar are
now being applied in wind engineering (Davies et al., 2004; Drew et al.,
2013; Gryning et al., 2013; Li et al., 2014; Post and Neff, 1986; Tamura
et al., 1999). Doppler sodar can measure wind speed, wind direction,
and turbulent structure at high spatial resolutions and was used prior
to Doppler lidar for lower atmosphere measurements (Lang and
McKeogh, 2011). However, Doppler lidar also enables wind profile
measurement for lower atmosphere without sound noise, unlike
Doppler sodar, which can annoy residents in nearby urban areas.
In this research, we measured wind profiles in the urban boundary
layer under various wind conditions in Tokyo, Japan. A Doppler lidar
system (DLS) was used for the measurement of wind profiles. An
ultrasonic anemometer (UA) was simultaneously used to measure
turbulent statistics in the boundary layer using the eddy covariance
method (ECM). Using the observed data, we quantitatively discuss the
Fig. 1. Aerial photo map of the observation site (Tokyo, Japan; modified from Google
approximation accuracy of the PL under a variety of real wind
Maps).

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H. Kikumoto et al. Journal of Wind Engineering & Industrial Aerodynamics 164 (2017) 13–21

located in the northeast of the site. These complex ground surface same data were not available for the DLS. The PDF shapes are very
configurations can cause changes in wind speed profile due to wind similar and indicate that the lack of data from the DLS did not have
direction. significant influence on the statistics of the mean speeds.
The DLS used in this study emits a pulsed laser with a wavelength
of 1.54 µm in four directions and calculates wind speed in the viewing 3.3. Wind direction during the observation period
line in each direction. The angle of scanning cone is about 15°. One
round of scanning takes about 40 s. Vectors are synthesized from data Frequency distributions of the wind direction measured by the DLS
on the four directions to calculate wind direction and speed at each at the highest and lowest levels are shown in Fig. 5. The results include
height. The threshold value of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) was set to the distributions for all speeds and high speeds (ub > 6 m/s). During
−27 dB (manufacturer recommended value). the observed period, southern and northern winds were the most
Observations were recorded for seven months in September– common at the lower level; however, the distribution was slightly
December 2013 and April–June 2014. Although DLS data was different for each height. The peaks observed at 0° and 60° at 67.5 m
recorded every 40 s, 10 and 30 min averages were mainly used. disappear at the higher level. This difference in the frequency distribu-
tion of the wind direction between the height levels became small for
3. Results and discussion higher speeds, and the south wind was dominant for the all heights.

3.1. Wind speed during the observation period 3.4. Wind speed and wind direction deviation along height

As DLS uses remote sensing of light scattered by atmospheric Fig. 6 shows the scatter plots between the wind speed and the
aerosols, it sometimes fails to obtain data in unfavorable atmospheric deviation in wind direction in relation to the direction measured at the
conditions such as clean air or in cloud cover. The data loss rate tended lowest DLS level (wdb) for four observed heights. The deviation tended
to be large at the highest and lowest altitudes of observations. To
control data quality and ensure that data at each altitude were
measured under the same atmospheric conditions, we only used
profiles for which speeds could be measured at all observed heights.
Table 1 shows the number of 10 min averaged profiles available under
this condition. The data acquisition ratio tended to be lower in the
winter because of low concentrations of aerosols in the atmosphere.
During the whole observation period, the data acquisition percentage
for the 10 min averaged profiles was 58.9%. In contrast, the data
acquisition ratio by the UA was nearly 100%.
Fig. 2 shows probability density functions (PDF) and cumulative
distribution functions (CDF) of horizontal wind speed for the lowest
DLS level (ub). The PDF has a Weibull distribution (Holtslag, 1984;
Kelly et al., 2014) and has a long tail towards high wind speed.
However, the mean ub for the 10 min averages was 4.3 m/s. Because
80% of the speeds were < 6 m/s, moderate and weak wind conditions
dominated most of the observed period.
Fig. 2. Probability density and cumulative distribution functions of horizontal wind
speeds measured by the DLS (67.5 m high) for 10 min averages.
3.2. Comparison of wind speed measured by the DLS and UA

The velocities of the western and southern wind components

measured by the DLS and UA are compared in Fig. 3. Even though
there was a 16 m difference in the measuring height and 600 m
distance between the sites, the data for both directions were signifi-
cantly correlated for 30 min averages. The correlation coefficients are
0.93 and 0.99 for the west-east and south-north wind components,
respectively. Because of this strong correlation, the two sites for the
DLS and UA measurements were assumed to be in the same wind
environment.
Fig. 4 compares PDFs and CDFs of horizontal wind speed for the
30 min averages measured by the DLS and UA. In this figure, all of the
available data from the UA were used to derive the PDF even if the

Table 1
Number of available data on 10-min average basis.

Month/Year Number of available data Data acquisition ratio [%]

9/2013 3441 83.5

10/2013 2707 60.6
11/2013 2200 50.9
12/2013 1080 24.2
4/2014 2907 68.1
5/2014 3070 68.8
6/2014 2523 58.4 Fig. 3. Correlation of the wind velocities from UA (52 m high) and DLS (67.5 m high).
Total 17,928 58.9 The west-east and south-north wind components for the 30 min averages are compared
between the observed data types.

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H. Kikumoto et al. Journal of Wind Engineering & Industrial Aerodynamics 164 (2017) 13–21

> 6 m/s and > 12 m/s) conditions. Plots are separated by north or
south wind direction at z=67.5 m. Although the variation of the wind
profiles remained relatively large, the mean speed could be fitted using
the PL for wind speeds > 6 m/s, with a PLI of 1/3 and 1/4 for north
and south wind, respectively, below 200 m high. These values coin-
cided with the PLI categorized in the “rough” or “very rough” used by
Counihan (1975). There is a large commercial area including sky-
scrapers on the north side of the DLS site (Fig. 1), and this difference in
land use may have resulted in a difference in PLI due to wind direction.
In higher wind cases ( > 12 m/s), the variation of the wind profiles
became small and the PLI difference due to the direction decreased. A
unique PLI of 1/4 can be used for both north and south wind profiles.
However, in Fig. 8, the PL profiles are drawn with the lowest DLS level
as the reference height. As a result, with increasing measurement
height, the wind speed tended to move away from the wind profile
based on the PL.
Fig. 4. Probability density and cumulative distribution functions of the horizontal wind
Even though the modeling of approaching flow using unique wind
speed measured by the DLS (67.5 m high) and UA for the 30 min averages.
direction is inappropriate because of the large deviation in the wind
direction (Fig. 6 and Fig. 7), we made ensemble-averaged profiles using
to increase with an increase in height difference. However, it decreased
data under all wind conditions and present them in Fig. 9. Because
with the increase in wind speed for all heights. For low wind speeds <
those profiles are composed of larger ensemble members than those
5 m/s, the deviation was very large, e.g., about 180° for a 100 m height
used in Fig. 8, they were assumed to reflect more realistic average
difference. For these cases, the determination of the representative
shape of the wind profiles. For the all speed conditions, there were
wind direction was very difficult, and it is inappropriate to assume a
large variations in the shape of wind profiles. However, the averaged
unique wind direction along the height for the modeling of approaching
profiles for the all measurement heights coincided well with the PL
flow.
with a PLI of 1/4.
Fig. 7 shows the vertical profiles of the average of the wind direction
deviation with their standard deviation based on the wind speed and
3.6. Wind speed and the PLI
direction at z=67.5 m. As shown in Fig. 6, the wind direction deviation
increased dramatically for 10 min averages when all wind speeds were
When we assume a wind profile obeys the PL, its PLI (α) can be
included, and the average deviation of the wind direction was mean-
evaluated using the following equation, rewriting Eq. (1) in the
ingless because of its large standard deviation. However, when using
following form in order to derive α:
only high wind speed data (ub≥6 m/s), the standard deviation
decreased and the average deviation of wind direction at each ln(U (z2 )/ U (z1))
α= ,
measurement height was < 7°. Even though the average deviation ln(z2 / z1) (2)
tended to become positive with an increase in observation height,
where U(zi) is the wind speed (m/s) at height zi (i=1, 2, in m).
which agrees with the Ekman spiral predictions, the change of wind
Fig. 10 shows the relationship between the wind speed and the PLI
direction along the height seems to be insignificant when ub > 6 m/s.
from the 30 min averaged speeds, setting z1 and z2 in Eqs. (2) to 67.5
and 167.5 m, respectively. For this analysis, we did not consider the
3.5. Average profiles of wind speed variation in wind direction. With a decrease in wind speed, the PLI
exhibited a larger variability. Sometimes the PLI reaches negative
Because the variation of wind direction along the height was very values when ub < 8 m/s and indicates that the speed at the lower level
large when the wind speed was low, we selected the profiles under high (z1) can be larger than that at the higher level (z2). However, for high
speed conditions. Fig. 8 presents the ensemble averages in high wind ( wind speeds, the PLI converged to around 1/4 (Fig. 8).
Fig. 11 presents the probability density functions of the PLI derived
for Fig. 10. Although there was a large variation in the PLI, it tended to
be smaller for low speeds. The mode of the PLI for all speeds was about
0.15 with the distribution having a longer tail towards a larger PLI. The
average PLIs for all, high, and low wind speeds are 0.22, 0.25, and 0.21,
respectively.

3.7. Averaging time and asymptotic behavior to the power law

In the preceding sections, profiles averaged for 10 and 30 min were

used for the analysis. However, averaging time can affect the accuracy
of the profile modeling using the PL. To quantitatively evaluate the
asymptotic behavior of the PL, we averaged the profiles with different
time length (from 10 min to 4 h) and divided them into different
groups according to the wind speed at the lowest level of the DLS
measurement. Fig. 12 shows the number of profiles for each averaging
time and speed category used for the following analysis. The number of
samples decreased the longer the averaging time and the larger the
wind speed. There is no sample of ub > 15 m/s for an averaging time of
Fig. 5. Frequency distributions of the wind direction for the 10 min averages measured
by the DLS at heights of 527.5 and 67.5 m. 0°, 90°, 180° and 270° are corresponding to 4 h and ub > 20 m/s for an averaging time of 2 h.
north, east, south and west wind directions, respectively. The high speed data were We fitted the profiles with the PL using the least-squares method
extracted using the horizontal wind speed for the lowest DLS level (ub). with two unknown parameters of the reference speed and the PLI. In

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H. Kikumoto et al. Journal of Wind Engineering & Industrial Aerodynamics 164 (2017) 13–21

Fig. 6. Relationship between the wind speed at a height of 67.5 m (ub) and deviation in the wind direction for z=107.5, 167.5, 267.5, and 467.5 m from the direction at 67.5 m high
(wdb) (10 min average).

this fitting, we limited the lowest value of the PLI to zero. From the
results of the fitting, we calculated the coefficient of determination (R2)
for each profile, which is defined in Eq. (3):
N
∑k =1 (U (zk ) − UPL (zk ))2
R2 = 1 − N
,
∑k =1 (U (zk ) − U )2 (3)

where U(zk) is a speed measured by the DLS at the height zk (k=1, 2, …,

N) averaged for a length of time, N is the number of levels used for the
fitting by the PL, and U is averaged speed along the N height levels. The
value of R2 implies how well the PL can express the change of measured
wind speed along the height.
Fig. 13 shows the mean value of R2 for the different averaging times
and speeds. Regardless of the range of the height, the R2 value was
high for all speeds (mean R2 > 0.9), especially when the ub > 15 m/s. It
is difficult to fit wind speeds of a large altitude range with one PL
profile (Fig. 8), therefore when we used a profile under 200 m, the R2
was also relatively higher in comparison to all heights. The reason is
not clear for a drop in the mean R2 for the category with 10-min
Fig. 7. Vertical profiles of the average of the wind direction deviation in relation to the
direction at a height of 67.5 m on 10 min average basis. The error bars show the root- averages and speeds of 20–25 m/s. It is possible that the data were
mean-square value of the wind direction deviation. The high wind speed data affected by a specific profile because the number of samples in this
corresponds to wind speeds (ub)≥6 m/s. category was small compared with those in other categories. The longer

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H. Kikumoto et al. Journal of Wind Engineering & Industrial Aerodynamics 164 (2017) 13–21

Fig. 8. Ensemble-averaged profiles of wind speed based on the 10 min averages for (i) ub≥6 m/s and (ii) ub≥12 m/s. Each profile is averaged after normalization using the horizontal
wind speed at the lowest DLS level (ub). The error bars show the standard deviation of the profiles. North wind corresponds to 0≤ wind direction (wdb) < 20° or 340≤wdb < 360°, while
south wind corresponds to 180≤wdb < 220°.

Fig. 9. Ensemble-averaged profiles of wind speed based on the 10 min averages for the
all speed conditions. See Fig. 8 for a description of other details.

Fig. 11. Probability and cumulative distribution functions of the PLI derived from the
30 min averaged wind speeds at 67.5 and 167.5 m high for (i) all speeds and (ii) high (ub
> 6 m/s) and low (ub < 6 m/s) speeds.

averaging time tended to result in a higher R2 when the speed was

relatively high. However, even though the averaging time was 4 h, the
R2 was 0.61 and 0.85 for the all heights and for the heights < 200 m,
Fig. 10. Wind speed at the DLS level (ub) and PLI (α) derived from the 30 min averages respectively when the ub was < 5 m/s. The wind speed had a greater
of wind speed at 67.5 and 167.5 m high. effect on the accuracy of the PL than the averaging time.

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H. Kikumoto et al. Journal of Wind Engineering & Industrial Aerodynamics 164 (2017) 13–21

100000
10 mins 30 mins 1 hr 2 hrs 4 hrs
10000
Number of samples

1000

100

10

1
0 - 5 m/s 5 - 10 m/s 10 - 15 m/s 15- 20 m/s 20 - 25 m/s
Wind speed

Fig. 12. Number of available samples of profiles for each time-averaging period and
wind speed category. Profiles were categorized using the horizontal wind speed for the
lowest DLS level (ub). Fig. 14. Diurnal variations of wind speed (DLS and UA) for each height averaged for the
entire measurement period.
1
10 mins 30 mins
0.9 1 hr 2 hrs acceleration, and H is upward turbulent heat flux. Fig. 15(i) and (ii)
4 hrs show the average diurnal changes of the turbulent fluxes of momentum
0.8 and heat from the UA measurement. Using these two results, the
Mean R [-]

Monin-Obukhov length was calculated, and z/L at the height of the UA

0.7
(52 m) is presented in Fig. 15(iii).
0.6
The downward turbulent momentum flux increased in the daytime
corresponding to the increase in the wind speed in Fig. 14, and the flux
0.5 value peaked around 15:00. The upward heat flux increased during the
daytime with its largest value occurring around the noon, which is
0.4 earlier than the peak in momentum flux. As a result, the atmosphere
0 - 5 m/s 5 - 10 m/s 10 - 15 m/s 15- 20 m/s 20 - 25 m/s
Wind speed tended to be unstable in the daytime and the stability (z/L) had a
(i) negative peak from 10:00 to 11:00. Stability showed very large
1 standard deviation at several times in Fig. 15(iii). This is because very
10 mins 30 mins
1 hr 2 hrs small (close to zero) friction velocity was measured in some samples,
0.9 4 hrs and z/L is proportional to u*−3.
Fig. 16 also presents mean diurnal variation of the PLI, but only
0.8
uses data with ub > 6 m/s because of the validity of the PL. Because the
Mean R [-]

0.7 measurement site can be categorized in terms of the ground roughness

into the “rough” or “very rough” categories provided by Counihan
0.6 (1975), the PLI was expected to reach 0.2–0.4 on these ground
surfaces. Although the PLIs in this study were close to this range, the
0.5
PL had a pattern of diurnal change. In the evening, the PLI gradually
0.4 increased and peaked in the early morning (from 5:00 to 6:00), and
0 - 5 m/s 5 - 10 m/s 10 - 15 m/s 15- 20 m/s 20 - 25 m/s then the PLI dropped to lower than 0.2 during the daytime. The trend
Wind speed
of the small PLIs in unstable conditions agrees with the data from
(ii)
Irwin (1979) and Touma (1977). Therefore, the small PLI during the
Fig. 13. Mean coefficient of determination (R2) of the fitting of horizontal wind speeds low wind speeds might be explained in terms of the atmospheric
at (i) all levels and (ii) levels less than 200 m using the PL for each time-averaging period
stability. However, further discussion of the modeling of the PLI based
and wind speed category. Profiles were categorized using the horizontal wind speed for
on the stability is beyond the scope of this paper, and we leave it for
the lowest DLS level (ub).
future studies.
3.8. Diurnal change of wind speed and the PLI
4. Conclusions
In Section 3.6, we showed that the PLI tended to decrease for the
low wind speeds. Fig. 14 shows mean diurnal variations of wind speed.
Wind profiles in the urban boundary layer under various wind
The speeds clearly increase with time during the day (from 8:00 to
conditions were measured in Tokyo, Japan using a DLS. We simulta-
18:00), and the difference in speed along the height decreases at the
neously used a UA to measure turbulent statistics using the ECM in the
higher measurement heights in the afternoon.
boundary layer. Measurements were conducted for a total of seven
Previous studies showed that the PLI depended not only on the
months. We applied the PL to approximate the measured wind profiles
roughness of the land surface, but also on the atmospheric stability and
and discussed the approximate accuracy for various wind conditions,
can be explained using atmospheric stability parameters, such as the
especially in terms of wind speed and averaging time.
Pasquill stability class and the Monin-Obukhov length (L) (Hanafusa
Moderate and low wind conditions dominated during the observed
et al., 1986; Irwin, 1979; Monin and Obukhov, 1954; Touma, 1977).
period. The 10-min wind speed at 67.5 m high (ub) averages were <
The Monin-Obukhov length is given as:
6 m/s during 80% of the observation period. Wind speeds measured at
ρcp Θ0 u*3 the DLS and UA sites were highly correlated with each other. The data
L=− , acquisition ratio of 10-min averaged profiles by the DLS was 58.9%
κgH (4)
because of missing data from unfavorable measurement conditions.
where ρ is density, cp is specific heat capacity, Θ0 is mean temperature, However, we did not find significant influence on the statistics of mean
u* is friction velocity, κ is the von Karman constant, g is gravitational speeds due to the lack of samples from the DLS when we compared the

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H. Kikumoto et al. Journal of Wind Engineering & Industrial Aerodynamics 164 (2017) 13–21

PDFs of wind speed with the UA data.

For low wind speeds (ub < 6 m/s), the large deviation in wind
direction with height made it difficult to determine the prevailing wind
direction. Therefore, modeling the approaching flow with unique wind
direction along the height was inappropriate under low wind condi-
tions.
For high wind speeds, the deviation in wind direction decreased
and the PL could be used to model the ensemble-averaged wind
profiles. When ub was > 12 m/s, the PLI converged to 1/4. However,
when we approximate the wind profile based on wind speed at the
lowest level of the measurement, the wind speed tended to move away
from the PL at greater heights (z > 300 m).
When we ignored the wind direction deviation with height and the
wind profile was composed of many ensemble-averaged samples, the
PL was a good model and the PLI of the profile was around 1/4.
However, when we focused on profiles with a 30-min average, the PLI
had a large variation for low wind conditions. The mode of the PLI for
all speeds was about 0.15, and the PDF has a long-tailed distribution
towards a larger PLI. The average PLIs for all, high (ub > 6 m/s), and
low (ub < 6 m/s) wind speeds were 0.22, 0.25, and 0.21, respectively.
The approximation accuracy of the PL for wind profiles significantly
depended on the wind speed and then with the averaging time. When
the wind speed was low (ub < 6 m/s), profile fitting using the PL was
inappropriate to model the approaching flow even for long averaging
times, e.g., 4 h. However, with increasing wind speed, the approxima-
tion accuracy significantly improved even for short averaging times.
When ub was > 15 m/s, the coefficient of determination by the PL for
the profiles was > 0.9 for 10-min averaged data.
Although the PL could only be used for high wind conditions, there
was a clear diurnal pattern to the PLI. It was larger in the nighttime
and early morning, reaching values of 0.4 at night and dropping to <
0.2 during the day. We suggest that this pattern is correlated with wind
speed and atmospheric stability.
The analysis of thermal and air pollution in urban areas is more
relevant at lower wind speeds because this results in higher tempera-
ture or pollutant concentrations affecting the daily lives of people. This
study revealed the limitation in modeling wind profiles for low speeds,
which should be addressed in future work.

Acknowledgements

This work was partly supported by the Japan Society for the
Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI Grants No. 24226013,
26709041, and 24241008.
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