Sensitivity of Simulated Wind Speed to Spatial Resolution over Complex Terrain

Preliminary results from simulations performed with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model for the development of a wind atlas of the Trentino region in the Alps are presented. One-year-long model simulations are validated against a dataset composed of quality-controlled data from surface weather stations. In particular, the paper investigates how the accuracy of the simulated wind speed is affected by the model spatial resolution in a region characterized by very complex terrain.