Beaufort Sea Coastal Wind Regime Study

The Beaufort Sea coastal areas are prominent geographical features that are largely covered by sea ice on a seasonal basis over the ocean and bounded by the Brooks Range in the south on land. The complex orographic effects of the Brooks Range and the Arctic sea breeze effects due to the land/ocean thermal contrast significantly complicate mesoscale weather systems and associated surface winds in this region. As thus a study has been established to improve understanding of the mesoscale weather patterns and associated surface wind features in the Beaufort Sea coastal areas through data analysis and numerical model simulations. We use the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to perform this study. The WRF's performance in simulating the wind field was analyzed, with emphasis placed on evaluating the capabilities of WRF to simulate the sea breeze and topographic effects. Overall, the WRF model performed reasonably well in estimating the surface winds, as well as capturing the timing of the wind shifts and the magnitude of the surface wind speed. The capability of WRF in simulating the sea breeze- influenced surface wind fields for the Beaufort Sea coast was confirmed. The topographic effects of the Brooks Range were found to exhibit complicated impacts under different types of weather systems. There are also strong interactions between the sea breeze circulation and the Brooks Range.