Comparison of line-of-sight wind speed measurements from an X-band radar and a long-range scanning lidar

As a still novel wind measurement technology, a dual-Doppler X-band wind radar system has been a substantial element of the full-scale onshore campaign AWAKEN (The American WAKE experimeNt). In order to select suitable further applications in the future and, particularly, the most optimal use cases in the wind industry for this technology, a line-of-sight wind speed verification campaign using a co-located scanning lidar as reference was set up as part of the AWAKEN campaign. The wind radar scanned in azimuth sector or plan position indicator (PPI) mode, with multiple elevations (volumetric PPI scan), while the scanning lidar remained fixed in a specific position during the verification campaign. Considering the individual spatial and temporal resolutions of the two systems, the closest points from the radar scanned volumes were compared with measurements from the scanning lidar after threshold-based and statistical data quality control. For a linear regression with 30-minute resolution data collected at 2 km range, a coefficient of determination of R2 = 0.99 was found. Radar mean values, binned according to reference wind speed, do lie in part within the reference uncertainty but not consistently for the investigated range of line-of-sight wind speeds. Part of the reference uncertainty is hereby also associated with the pro