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At least 235 records · Page 13

Arroyo Mocho Habitat Suitability Assessment for Sensitive Reptiles, Amphibians, and Fish

Sequoia Ecological Consulting, Inc. (Sequoia) has prepared this habitat suitability assessment for the purpose of assessing current habitat suitability and evaluating the potential presence of special-status species at and near the Arroyo Mocho Pumping Station (Arroyo Mocho). The Study Area is located 7.5 miles southeast of the City of Livermore in Alameda County, California. Our analysis provides a description of presence and habitat suitability for special-status reptiles, amphibians, and fish within the Study Area and identifies potential conservation measures. Special-status animals are designated by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW). This analysis focuses on California tiger salamander (Ambystoma californiense), California red-legged frog (Rana draytonii), foothill yellow-legged frog (Rana boylii), western pond turtle (Emys marmorata), Alameda whipsnake (Masticophis lateralis euryxanthus), Coast horned lizard (Phrynosoma blainvilli), and central California coast distinct population segment (DPS) steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss), per the request of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Oregon Roadway CSZ Liquefaction and Landslide Impact Screening Analysis

The roadway transportation routes and the surrounding environments in Oregon will be subject to ground acceleration and potential associated deformation due to the propagation of waves of energy during a Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) earthquake. Linear features such as highways may be subject to partial or complete disruption of their function resulting from ground deformations at and along the roadway. A potential source of these disruptions associated with a CSZ event are landslides and liquefaction in the soils along and beneath the highways and local roadways. The construction of the Oregon roadway system and urban development have occurred largely along the banks of the rivers—those along the Pacific coast, and along the valleys throughout the Oregon Coast Range and Cascade Mountains. These locations also represent areas where landslides and liquefaction have occurred historically, or may potentially occur in the future, presenting a significant vulnerability for the roadway system and dependent post-CSZ earthquake emergency response and recovery effort. Many of the Oregon areas with landslide- and liquefaction-prone soils have the potential to impact roadway transportation routes after a major earthquake causing delays in establishing routes to transport emergency response personnel and resources to impacted areas and communities. This report presents methods used to project the impacts that CSZ earthquake-induced landslides and liquefaction may have on roadways across Oregon. First, this report presents an approach for estimating the risk of landslides to Oregon roadways, and determining approximate reopening times. Second, this report presents a similar approach for estimating the risk of liquefaction-induced ground displacements to roadway pavements, also resulting in approximate reopening times for roadway segments. The outcomes of these two ground failure analyses serve as inputs to a broader analysis of CSZ earthquake impacts to Oregon’s surface transportation system and its ability to support post-disaster response and recovery activities, as part of the Oregon Transportation Systems Regional Resiliency Assessment Program project (CISA 2021).

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Atlantic Offshore Wind Transmission Literature Review and Gaps Analysis

In support of the national goal to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030, DOE’s Wind Energy Technologies Office has published an Atlantic Offshore Wind Transmission Literature Review and Gaps Analysis. Transmission constraints— including both land-based transmission interconnections and offshore transmission—are expected to be one of the central challenges to meeting offshore wind deployment goals. Given current trends in offshore wind development, available technology, and state-level procurement goals, most of the first 30 GW of offshore wind are anticipated to be developed along the East Coast. This report summarizes current publicly available transmission analyses along the Atlantic Coast, as well as gaps in existing analyses. Improving understanding of offshore wind transmission options, establishing coordination and aligning processes among states and regions, and quantifying the long-term impacts of offshore wind transmission options will catalyze offshore wind energy’s growth and ensure adequate transmission and a reliable grid.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Integrated Hydrogen Energy Storage System (IHESS) for Power Generation (Final Report)

GTI Energy partnered with Praxair Inc., a subsidiary of Linde PLC (Praxair), the Center for Electromechanics at the University of Texas at Austin (CEM), Entergy Corporation (Entergy), Quanta Services (Quanta) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) to perform a feasibility study that determines the economic and technical feasibility of low-carbon hydrogen energy storage integrated with a site-specific fossil fuel asset to decarbonize electricity production using the Integrated Hydrogen Energy Storage System (IHESS). The proposed IHESS concept is novel, as it sought to leverage the existing natural gas infrastructure, hydrogen production and pipelines, existing underground hydrogen storage system and power plants in the Gulf Coast region to reduce carbon emissions and generate lowcarbon electricity. This study has shown that IHESS has a promising commercial outlook as the concept leverages existing natural gas infrastructure assets and hydrogen production and storage that are unique to the Texas gulf coast region. A key hurdle with hydrogen supply and transportation has been capital investment. By storing hydrogen in underground storage and delivering it as a fuel source during peak demand using the existing infrastructure minimizes the capital investment. Regional petrochemical producers who are actively seeking opportunities to reduce costs and lower emissions should find the IHESS concept very appealing.

03 NATURAL GAS↗

Ice Nucleation Measurements during TRACER (Field Campaign Report)

This campaign, Ice Nucleation Measurements during TRACER, was conducted during the TRacking Aerosol Convection Interactions ExpeRiment (TRACER) in Houston, Texas during June-September, 2022. Specifically, our ice nucleation campaign was designed to improve understanding of ice nucleating particles (INPs) and their role in deep convective clouds across the Houston region. Summertime deep convection in southeast Texas is regularly tied to the sea-breeze front (SBF) that pushes inland from the Gulf of Mexico across the region. During TRACER, three Davis Rotating Uniform size-cut Monitors (DRUM; DRUMAir 4-DRUM) were used to collect aerosols for offline ice nucleation measurements in the Brooks laboratory at Texas A&M University. The three instruments were located at the U.S. Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) first Mobile Facility (AMF1) in La Porte, at the ancillary site in Guy (ANC), and onboard the newly developed Texas A&M Rapid Onsite Atmospheric Measurements Van (ROAM-V). Aerosol at the main ARM TRACER site, ARM1, is expected to arise from local urban, industrial, and ship channel sources. In contrast, the ANC is isolated and rural, and can therefore provide a continental background aerosol population. On select days when convective development was forecast to be probable, ROAM-V commuted from College Station, Texas to Galveston, sampled in the morning/mid-day on the coast, and then transited to a second inland site for the afternoon/evening. Sampling from the ROAM-V allowed us to capture aerosol and meteorological differences between maritime and continental airmasses by strategically positioning the ROAM-V near the coast in the morning in the opposite airmass from the AMF1 site.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Lidar Buoy Data Dictionary: For the 2020 – 2021 California Deployments

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) manages two AXYS WindSentinel™ buoys (Buoys #120 and #130) on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) that collect a comprehensive set of meteorological and oceanographic (metocean) data to support resource characterization for wind energy offshore. The buoys have been deployed off the California coast in partnership with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) from September 2020 through October 2021. One buoy was deployed within the Morro Bay Call Area offshore central California; the other buoy was deployed within the Humboldt Call Area off the coast of northern California. The measurements from the buoys are used to characterize the metocean conditions near potential locations for offshore wind lease areas and are uploaded to DOE’s Data Archive and Portal (DAP). Plots are updated on the DAP webpage to visualize the recent metocean measurements. This document serves as a data dictionary – or reference guide – for understanding and interpreting the data available from the buoys. This document includes: (1) specifications for the buoy instrumentation (Section 2.0) (2) description of each plot and definition of measured parameters (Section 3.0) (3) description of data files and naming convention (Appendix A) (4) reference guide of measurements and variables (Appendix B).

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Assessing the link between aerosol mixing state, structure and composition and their optical properties: Ascension Island as a testbed for the South‐East Atlantic aerosol regimes

Forest and savanna fires are a major source of pollution over the globe. Such fire events emit to the atmosphere a considerable amount of “fluffy” fractal black looking particles that are often referred to as black carbon (BC) or soot aerosols. In fact, BC particles (aerosols) emitted from savanna and agricultural fires over the African continent play an important role in the region’s and the global climate. These fires occur each year between July and October, which is referred to as the biomass burning (BB) season and are considered among the globe's largest man-made emission sources of BC particles. However, during these fire events, not only BC particles are emitted, but also other types of particles and gases that can interact with each other to create new particles, generating a slew of particles often generally referred to as BB aerosols. Although the majority of the fire emissions occur inland in the sub-Saharan part of Africa, their effect reaches far beyond the continent due to the prevailing easterly winds, which transport those aerosols over the South-East Atlantic (SEA) ocean, off the west-coast of Africa. The reason why these particles are so important to the regional and global climate is that they absorb sunlight radiation, which overall warms the climate. However, the magnitude of this warming effect is highly uncertain and depends upon a multitude of aspects. Our overarching goal for this project was to better understand the changes in the aerosol properties as they transport from fire sources downstream toward the ocean and how this can eventually affect the earth's radiative budget in terms of warming or cooling. Following the above, our work here was focused on the investigation of the African BB aerosol plumes mixing state (mixing of BB aerosols and other aerosol types), composition and size distribution as they transport from the African continent towards the SEA ocean, and their link with some of the commonly measurable bulk optical properties such as mass absorption coefficient (MAC) and single scattering albedo (SSA). We utilized three field missions that were conducted over the SEA ocean between 2016 and 2018. Specifically, we used (1) ground-based measurements from the DOE ARM Mobile Facility (AMF1), which was deployed at Ascension Island (ASI) for the LASIC (Layered Atlantic Smoke Interactions with Clouds) campaign between June 2016 and October 2017, (2) airborne measurements from the UK CLARIFY (Clouds and Aerosol Radiative impacts and Forcing) campaign during Aug-Sep-2017, and (3) airborne measurements from the ORACLES (Observations of Aerosols above Clouds and their interactions) campaign during Aug-2017, and Sep-Oct-2018. The three campaigns cover a relatively large region, from the western African coast on the east towards Ascension Island in the middle of the SEA to the west. We used the data gathered by these campaigns to find how BB properties and composition change from near emission sources (the ORACLES campaign flights) downstream (the CLARIFY flights and the ground based LASIC measurements). We used particle trajectory following methodologies to connect the measurements from the different campaigns, which allowed us to follow a certain aerosol plume (airmass) from near-source towards Ascension Island. We found out that atmospheric aging processes governed by the UV light from the sun (photochemistry) and cloud processes (aqueous chemistry) govern the changes seen in the particle composition during the transport were more dominant in dictating aerosol composition than specific emission composition or source types. We assessed how aerosol optical properties change during the BB season and what are the main drivers of this change. We found that the enhanced ratio of BC to CO is well correlated with single scattering albedo (SSA) and mass absorption coefficient (MACBC), providing a simple way to estimate the aerosol optical characteristics in the south-eastern Atlantic Ocean. From the analysis of the location of BB, the primary source fuel, the water content in the fuel, combined with the mean cloud cover and precipitation in the transport areas of the BB plume, we conclude that the increase in BC/CO from June to August is likely to be caused by burning becoming more flaming (hot fires), and the decrease in BC/CO in September and October may be caused by smoldering (colder) fires. We found that aerosol hygroscopicity increases with decreasing altitude below 2km, and that enhanced BB hygroscopicity at lower altitudes is mainly due to a lower organic aerosol (OA) fraction, increased sulfate fraction, and greater hygroscopicity parameter of OA at lower altitudes.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Northern California and Southern Oregon Offshore Wind Transmission Study: Volume 1 (Revised)

Offshore wind (OSW) power based on floating technology in the coastal waters of the U.S. Pacific Ocean has great potential to contribute to climate mitigation and renewable energy goals in California, Oregon, and other parts of the western U.S. To achieve development of OSW at scale, investments in transmission infrastructure are needed to deliver this power to major metropolitan areas because these are the primary electricity load centers. Currently the transmission infrastructure serving coastal regions where OSW is most likely to be developed has limited capacity and is designed to bring power from the east to serve modest coastal loads. The development of OSW generation and the interconnection of this resource to the bulk power grid will require major investments in new transmission infrastructure and upgrades to existing infrastructure. This study investigated the development of up to 25.8 GW of OSW energy on the northern coast of California and the southern coast of Oregon. The focus of the study was to assess various transmission alternatives that could deliver OSW power to distant load centers while also providing energy benefits to rural coastal communities near to where OSW power may be developed.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Gulf of Mexico Offshore Wind Transmission - Literature Review and Gaps Analysis: Environmental Considerations, Community Readiness, and Infrastructure

The ability to effectively and efficiently connect offshore wind energy resources to end users in the Gulf of Mexico, requires coordinated transmission planning to ensure that electric transmission facilities can adequately support future offshore development. The Gulf of Mexico has substantial wind resources in both shallow shelf waters and deeper waters off the shelf where fixed bottom and floating wind technologies would be most appropriate. Most interest in offshore wind development to date has been in the central and western portions of the Gulf of Mexico (Louisiana and Texas) in federal and state waters. As a companion study to other federal activities in the offshore wind transmission space, including the Atlantic Offshore Wind Transmission Literature Review and Gaps Analysis, the Atlantic Offshore Wind Transmission Study, the West Coast Offshore Wind Transmission Literature Review and Gaps Analysis, the West Coast Offshore Wind Transmission Study, and the Advancing Offshore Wind Energy in the United States: U. S. Department of Energy Strategic Contributions Toward 30 Gigawatts and Beyond Report, this literature review and gaps analysis for offshore wind transmission in the Gulf of Mexico builds off previous literature reviews and supports the role of federal leadership to facilitate offshore wind energy. The overarching goal of this document is to identify gaps and lay the groundwork to inform coordinated transmission planning, ocean co-use, existing energy infrastructure, and siting associated with offshore wind energy development in the Gulf of Mexico. There are unique regional considerations for offshore wind transmission, which are summarized herein based on a review and assessment of publicly available information.

08 HYDROGEN↗

Coastal-Urban-Rural Atmospheric Gradient Experiment (CoURAGE) Science Plan

Understanding the mechanisms governing the urban atmospheric environment is critical for informing urban populations regarding the impacts of climate change and associated mitigation and adaptation measures. Earth system (climate and weather) models have not yet been adapted to provide accurate predictions of climate and weather variability within cities, nor do they provide well-tested representations of the impacts of urban systems on the atmospheric environment. These limitations are largely due to limited field data available for testing and development of these models. We will deploy the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility’s first Mobile Facility (AMF1) to the mid-Atlantic region surrounding the city of Baltimore for the Coast-Urban-Rural Atmospheric Gradient Experiment (CoURAGE). This deployment will create a four-node regional atmospheric observatory network including Baltimore and its three primary surrounding environments – rural, urban, and bay. CoURAGE investigators will study the interactions among the Earth’s surface, the atmospheric boundary layer, aerosols and atmospheric composition, clouds, radiation, and precipitation at each site, and examine how the spatial gradients across the region interact to create the climate conditions in Baltimore. This study will determine the degree to which Baltimore’s atmospheric environment depends on interactive feedbacks in the atmospheric system and the degree to which conditions in Baltimore depend on the surrounding environment. Some topics of interest include how urban land management exacerbates heat waves, the impact of regional mesoscale winds (nocturnal jet, bay breeze) on urban air pollution and cloud cover, and the impact of the urban heat island and aerosol production on heavy precipitation events. Understanding this integrated coast-urban-rural system quantitatively and with good accuracy and precision is critical to informing climate adaptation and mitigation efforts in the city of Baltimore. The understanding gained should be applicable to many similar coastal, mid-latitude urban centers. Another important objective of CoURAGE is to improve the representation of the climate of coastal cities in Earth systems models (ESMs). CoURAGE investigators will use the observations to test current ESMs, identify weaknesses and work towards improved simulations of this complex environment. The ARM core facility will be deployed in the city of Baltimore, complementing the Baltimore Social-Environmental Collaborative (BSEC), a DOE urban integrated field laboratory (UIFL). Ancillary sites will be deployed to rural Maryland northwest of Baltimore, and to the southern end of Kent Island within Chesapeake Bay. The fourth node will be a long-term atmospheric observatory operated in Beltsville, Maryland by Howard University and the Maryland Department of the Environment. Measurements will be conducted for one year, starting in December of 2024. There will be two intensive operational periods (IOPs), one in summer and one in winter, when the ancillary sites will be enhanced with additional balloon launches, tethered balloon system (TBS) operation, and added atmospheric composition measurements.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

The Port of Los Angeles Zero- and Near-Zero-Emission Freight Facilities Shore to Store Project

The City of Los Angeles Harbor Department (Harbor Department, Port of Los Angeles) partnered with Equilon Enterprises LLC (d/b/a Shell Oil Products US) (Shell), Toyota Motor North America (Toyota), and Kenworth Truck Company (Kenworth) partnered with the Port of Hueneme, United Parcel Service, Total Transportation Services Inc., Southern Counties Express, Toyota Logistics Services, Air Liquide, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Coalition For A Safe Environment, and the South Coast Air Quality Management District to introduce hydrogen fuel into the Southern California drayage truck market by demonstrating near-commercial heavy-duty hydrogen fuel cell electric trucks at and between freight facilities throughout the region, while continuing to lay the groundwork for battery-electric operations. The Shore to Store project built on project team experience to help realize our vision of zero-emission freight operations in the future. Ten Kenworth zero-emission Class 8 fuel cell electric trucks, integrated with Toyota’s fuel cell drive technology, were operated by United Parcel Service, Total Transportation Services Inc., Southern Counties Express, and Toyota Logistics Services in commercial service. The demonstration fleet fueled at the Shore to Store hydrogen fueling stations that were built in Ontario, California, and Wilmington, California. An additional station at the Port of Long Beach (Portal Station) was available for fueling the fleet. Portal Station was supported by grants from the California Energy Commission and South Coast Air Quality Management District and used as match funding for the Shore to Store project. The Port of Hueneme demonstrated two battery-electric yard tractors, and Toyota Logistics Services demonstrated two zero-emission forklifts at their warehouse facility, showcasing elements of the entire supply chain operating with zero emissions. This project showcased a snapshot of the zero-emission supply chain of the future, providing a model by which freight facilities can support zero-emission operations. The Shore to Store project: Demonstrated the technical feasibility of zero-emission hydrogen fueled Class 8 heavy-duty trucks and electric cargo handling equipment in rigorous goods movement operation throughout the Southern California region. Cumulatively completed 59,212 miles of zero-emission operation, with 21,650 miles driven in-service with the fleets, using hydrogen fuel cell electric Class 8 heavy-duty trucks. Operated zero-emission yard tractors for a total of 2,749.6 hours. Created direct localized emission reductions in designated disadvantaged communities, including those in zip codes 90220, 90247, 90248, 90731, 90744, 90802, and 91761. For the 59,212 miles of zero-emission operation, reduced emissions by an estimated total of 15.5 kg NOX (0.163 g/km), 1.01 kg SOX (0.0106 g/km), and 304.8 metric tonnes of CO2e (3.2 kg/km) compared to diesel baseline vehicles including both tailpipe emissions and the emissions from producing the fuel sources.

08 HYDROGEN↗

Resource Characterization for Community Scale Tidal Instream Energy in Maine [Abstract]

Coastal and island communities in Maine are seeking solutions to increase the resiliency of their electrical grid while also reducing their carbon footprint. Unfortunately, many community scale tidal resources identified on the Maine coast have not been rigorously evaluated; previous studies identified numerous hot spots but left many of them unevaluated or under evaluated (e.g., only power density was assessed in many cases). The primary objective of this TEAMER project is to evaluate selected community scale tidal instream resources to demonstrate their potential for contributing to the renewable energy needs of nearby coastal communities. The methods developed in this study will enable the total community scale tidal instream energy resource along the Maine coast to be evaluated in follow-on studies. The study will also enable turbine developers to understand how to scale and optimize their devices for deployment in turbine farms at community scale sites. Data from the study will be shared publicly through MHKDR or relevant community websites.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗

High-Resolution Regional Atmosphere–Ocean–Wave Coupled Simulations of Hurricane Henri (2021)

To explore the integrated effects of ocean and ocean surface wave related physical processes on TC simulations, a set of three model simulations is performed. * In experiment 'A', the event is modeled using the Weather Research Forecasting (WRF) model alone with prescribed Sea Surface Temperature (SST) at 6-hour intervals. * In experiment ‘AO,’ WRF is coupled with the Finite Volume Community Ocean Model (FVCOM), enabling variable exchange between atmosphere and ocean, but without considering ocean surface wave-related physical processes. * In experiment ‘AOW’, WRF, FVCOM, and Simulating WAves Nearshore (SWAN) exchange variables with each other every hour through the OASIS3-MCT Coupler to allow direct and indirect atmosphere-ocean-wave interactions. * Observational data are also included in this dataset (Dropsonde, HRD-Radar, NDBC_wave). All simulations are initialized at 18:00 UTC on August 19, 2021, within a domain encompassing the western North Atlantic Ocean. The atmospheric domain features a horizontal resolution of 3 km. The ocean domain, which covers a substantial portion of the WRF ocean domain, employs an unstructured triangular grid with resolutions ranging from 3 km near the coast to 9 km in the open ocean, effectively resolving the complex coastline of the U.S. Northeast Coast. Initial and boundary conditions for the atmosphere model are obtained from the 6-hourly 0.25° NCEP (National Centers for Environmental Prediction) Global Forecast System (GFS; NCEP, 2015) data.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

High-Resolution Regional Atmosphere–Ocean–Wave Coupled Simulations of Hurricane Henri (2021)

To explore the integrated effects of ocean and ocean surface wave related physical processes on TC simulations, a set of three model simulations is performed. * In experiment 'A', the event is modeled using the Weather Research Forecasting (WRF) model alone with prescribed Sea Surface Temperature (SST) at 6-hour intervals. * In experiment ‘AO,’ WRF is coupled with the Finite Volume Community Ocean Model (FVCOM), enabling variable exchange between atmosphere and ocean, but without considering ocean surface wave-related physical processes. * In experiment ‘AOW’, WRF, FVCOM, and Simulating WAves Nearshore (SWAN) exchange variables with each other every hour through the OASIS3-MCT Coupler to allow direct and indirect atmosphere-ocean-wave interactions. * Observational data are also included in this dataset (Dropsonde, HRD-Radar, NDBC_wave). All simulations are initialized at 18:00 UTC on August 19, 2021, within a domain encompassing the western North Atlantic Ocean. The atmospheric domain features a horizontal resolution of 3 km. The ocean domain, which covers a substantial portion of the WRF ocean domain, employs an unstructured triangular grid with resolutions ranging from 3 km near the coast to 9 km in the open ocean, effectively resolving the complex coastline of the U.S. Northeast Coast. Initial and boundary conditions for the atmosphere model are obtained from the 6-hourly 0.25° NCEP (National Centers for Environmental Prediction) Global Forecast System (GFS; NCEP, 2015) data.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

High-Resolution Regional Atmosphere–Ocean–Wave Coupled Simulations of Hurricane Henri (2021)

To explore the integrated effects of ocean and ocean surface wave related physical processes on tropical cyclone simulations, a set of three model simulations is performed. * In experiment 'A', the event is modeled using the Weather Research Forecasting (WRF) model alone with prescribed Sea Surface Temperature (SST) at 6-hour intervals. * In experiment ‘AO,’ WRF is coupled with the Finite Volume Community Ocean Model (FVCOM), enabling variable exchange between atmosphere and ocean, but without considering ocean surface wave-related physical processes. * In experiment ‘AOW’, WRF, FVCOM, and Simulating WAves Nearshore (SWAN) exchange variables with each other every hour through the OASIS3-MCT Coupler to allow direct and indirect atmosphere-ocean-wave interactions. * Observational data are also included in this dataset (Dropsonde, HRD-Radar, NDBC_wave). All simulations are initialized at 18:00 UTC on August 19, 2021, within a domain encompassing the western North Atlantic Ocean. The atmospheric domain features a horizontal resolution of 3 km. The ocean domain, which covers a substantial portion of the WRF ocean domain, employs an unstructured triangular grid with resolutions ranging from 3 km near the coast to 9 km in the open ocean, effectively resolving the complex coastline of the U.S. Northeast Coast. Initial and boundary conditions for the atmosphere model are obtained from the 6-hourly 0.25° NCEP (National Centers for Environmental Prediction) Global Forecast System (GFS; NCEP, 2015) data. These CSV files are derived from the NetCDF files in the c0 dataset. Unlike the original format, where geographic coordinates were stored in a separate file, each CSV now embeds the corresponding latitude and longitude values alongside the measured or simulated variables.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Observed Atmospheric River Events

This dataset contains observed landfalling atmospheric river (AR) events over the Northeast Pacific and U.S. West Coast used to initialize and evaluate the Deep-AR synthetic atmospheric river framework. It includes 1,434 held-out events whose observed records begin 48 hours before diagnosed AR landfall and continue at 6-hour intervals over a 144-hour event window. Each HDF5 file provides high-resolution 0.25° gridded fields of integrated vapor transport components (qu, qv), 10 m wind components (u10, v10), and 6-hour accumulated precipitation. IVT components and precipitation are sourced from EDARA; 10 m winds are sourced from ERA5. The records share a common 200 × 480 grid over the Northeast Pacific and U.S. West Coast and include coordinate and datetime arrays. These events support atmospheric-river hazard analysis, evaluation of synthetic event generation, precipitation-extremes research, and regional stress testing.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Contributing to Long-term Wind Resource Characterization through Buoy-based Observations of Meteorological and Oceanographic Conditions

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) supports development of renewable power generation within the U.S. with increasing emphasis on offshore wind energy. This development is currently impeded by a lack of long-term wind observations above the ocean surface at wind turbine rotor plane heights. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) procured two AXYS WindSentinelTM buoys on behalf of DOE to support offshore wind resource assessment. The buoys are available for loan to qualified users according to agency priorities. The Lidar Buoy Loan Program represents an opportunity for organizations with an interest in offshore wind energy to work together with DOE to provide valuable meteorological and oceanographic data to the offshore community that is needed for offshore wind resource characterization. The buoys have already begun to fill observational gaps in offshore winds during long-term deployments off the coasts of Virginia and New Jersey and are scheduled for deployment off the coast of California in 2020. This paper provides an overview of the Lidar Buoy Loan Program, along with highlights of previous deployments, a summary of the upgrades to the lidar systems, and a discussion of the planned activities related to the buoys and the Lidar Buoy Loan Program.

floating lidar, offshore wind energy, wind resourc↗

Observationally driven Resource Assessment with CoupLEd models (ORACLE)

This project seeks to carry out a multifaceted analysis combining buoy observations, machine learning, turbulence, satellite data and high-resolution modeling. Our analyses will investigate air–sea interaction physics governing the variation of the winds with height and influence of clouds, uncertainty in coupled ocean-wave-atmosphere mesoscale models to capture certain key atmospheric phenomenon observed over the U.S. West Coast, impact of climate change, and the fidelity with which resource characterization models describe the range of observed offshore wind conditions. This project will focus its efforts on characterizing and assessing the atmospheric and oceanographic conditions along the U.S. West Coast.

Wind, Energy↗