Evaluating the Performance of Diurnal Wind Speed Models for Some Selected Tropical Stations in South West Zone, Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Wind speed diurnal patterns are required for monitoring the Global Energy Budget and predicting climate change in humid tropical areas. Objectives: This article validated three distinct diurnal wind speed models (Ephrath, Gregory, and Harmonic Analysis) for estimating hourly wind speed from daily maximum, daily minimum, and daily mean wind speed. Methods: The performance of three different diurnal wind speed models is validated using Surface Layer observations from the Nigeria Micrometeorological Experimental Site (NIMEX) for two locations. Results: The overall performance of the Gregory and Harmonic Analysis models revealed a large deviation from the measured data, whereas Mean Bias Error (MBE) and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) values were found to be low for wet days (-0.10 ms^-1 and 0.55 ms^-1, respectively) for the Ibadan site and Ile-Ife site (-0.20 ms^-1 and 0.74 ms^-1, respectively) for the Ephrath Sinusoidal Model. On dry days, the Ephrath Sinusoidal Model MBE and RMSE values for the Ibadan location were -0.16 ms^-1 and 0.64 ms^-1, respectively, while they were -0.06 ms^-1 and 0.76 ms^-1 for the Ile-Ife site. The findings also demonstrated that the performance of the Ephrath Sinusoidal Model at the Ibadan location was better on rainy days than it was on dry days. Conclusion: The Ephrath Sinusoidal Model generated forecast results that are appropriate to the region based on the performance.

Keywords: Wind Speed, Energy, Resource, Synoptic, Humid