Microclimates
Impact of Spatio-Climatic Variability on Environment-hosted Land-Based Renewables
This project is part of the NERC-Land Based Renewables programme Microclimate effects on ecosystem responses are not currently incorporated in the planning and allocation of Land-Based Renewables (LBR). This project aims to improve and support such decision-making, under present day and future climate scenarios. The programme will develop a tool for down-scaling the climate to assess local scale (down to hundreds of metres) climatic variations, both in the recent past and also within the scope of future climate predictions (WP0). The output of the down-scaling tool will feed into numerous LBR applications. We will assess microclimate effects at a wind farm site to predict the effect of turbine wakes on both, efficiency (WP2) and ecosystem impact (WP1) of wind farms. WP3 will quantify and evaluate the impact of climate variability on yield of energy crops using predictive crop models driven by average or down-scaled climate inputs. WP4 will focus on Knowledge Exchange and includes four formal project partners: Meteorological Office, Forestry Commission, Scottish Power and E.ON.
Project Partners
Prof. Stephen Mobbs (NCAS),
Dr. David Brayshaw (University of Reading),
Prof. Susan Waldron (University of Glasgow),
Dr. Nick Ostle (CEH, Lancaster),
Dr. Simon Watson (University of Loughborough)
Dr. Goetz Richter (Rothamsted Research)
Dr. Clive Wilson (UK Meteorological Office)
Dr. Simon Drew (University of Glasgow)
Researchers
Dr. Alona Armstrong (University of Glasgow)
Dr Mark Bart (University of Leeds / NCAS)
Dr. Ralph Burton (NCAS)
Mr James Groves (NCAS)
Mr Jim Jackson (Retired, formerly University of Leeds)
Dr.Susan Lee (NCAS)
Harriett Rea (CEH, Lancaster)
Mr Dan Walker (NCAS)
Dr. Jeanette Whitaker (CEH, Lancaster)
Scott Wylie (University of Loughborough)
