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- Arnqvist, Johan, 1985-, et al.
(författare)
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Robust processing of airborne laser scans to plant area density profiles
- 2020
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Ingår i: Biogeosciences. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1726-4170 .- 1726-4189. ; 17:23, s. 5939-5952
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present a new algorithm for the estimation of the plant area density (PAD) profiles and plant area index (PAI) for forested areas based on data from airborne lidar. The new element in the algorithm is to scale and average returned lidar intensities for each lidar pulse, whereas other methods do not use the intensity information at all, use only average intensity values, or do not scale the intensity information, which can cause problems for heterogeneous vegetation. We compare the performance of the new algorithm to three previously published algorithms over two contrasting types of forest: a boreal coniferous forest with a relatively open structure and a dense beech forest. For the beech forest site, both summer (full-leaf) and winter (bare-tree) scans are analyzed, thereby testing the algorithm over a wide spectrum of PAIs. Whereas all tested algorithms give qualitatively similar results, absolute differences are large (up to 400 % for the average PAI at one site). A comparison with ground-based estimates shows that the new algorithm performs well for the tested sites. Specific weak points regarding the estimation of the PAD from airborne lidar data are addressed including the influence of ground reflections and the effect of small-scale heterogeneity, and we show how the effect of these points is reduced in the new algorithm, by combining benefits of earlier algorithms. We further show that low-resolution gridding of the PAD will lead to a negative bias in the resulting estimate according to Jensen's inequality for convex functions and that the severity of this bias is method dependent. As a result, the PAI magnitude as well as heterogeneity scales should be carefully considered when setting the resolution for the PAD gridding of airborne lidar scans.
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| 2. |
- Janzon, Erik
(författare)
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Local Effects On Icing Forecasts for Wind Power In Cold Climate
- 2022
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis will examine the local effects of land cover on icing forecasts. In Paper I, a single column model was used to test the sensitivity of icing forecasts to land cover fraction. Here, the ice accretion forecast was found to be highly sensitive to the wind magnitude response to the surface roughness. Diabatic effects related to the surface albedo played a secondary role, significant in cases with strong solar irradiance. Paper II examined the impact of 2-dimensional patterns of land cover heterogeneity on the effective surface roughness and blending height using large eddy simulation over a diurnal cycle of solar irradiance. The blending height--or the elevation at which the atmospheric response to the underlying land cover becomes horizontally homogeneous--has been proposed as a guide for coupling numerical weather models to surface parameterizations. In stable conditions, when the atmospheric boundary layer height was shallow, the blending height over surfaces with large heterogeneity length scale was found to be much lower than that of analytical models from previous studies. A new formula for a dynamic blending height was proposed taking this effect into account. The effective surface roughness was found to decrease with increasing land cover heterogeneity. The wind power response from an idealized wind turbine with 80-meter hub height to the effective surface roughness was shown, with a positive response in wind power with increasing land cover heterogeneity. The wind power response was smaller and less systematic with wind turbines extending above the blending height, further highlighting the utility of an accurate formulation for this variable.
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