Description

Environment and Climate Change Canada has developed a state-of-the-art modelling strategy to generate multi-year time series of surface-layer meteorological fields based on its numerical weather prediction model GEM-LAM to support the Pan-Canadian Wind Integration Study (PCWIS) project. This three-dimensional mesoscale atmospheric model was run continuously covering a period of three years (Jan 2008 – Dec 2010) with 2-km horizontal grid spacing and 10 min time resolution, over all of Canada (south of 70º N). Mandatory outputs for the project include wind speed and direction, air temperature, and specific humidity at 80, 100, and 120 m above ground level along with surface pressure. In addition to the wind energy relevant data, other variables such as downward solar radiation and precipitation relevant to other forms of renewable energy are also made available through this web site.

The project is financially supported by the Canadian federal government ecoENERGY Innovation Initiative (ecoEII) program which is managed by the Natural Resources Canada (NRCan).