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ARS Home » Plains Area » Fort Collins, Colorado » Center for Agricultural Resources Research » Rangeland Resources & Systems Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #332099
Title: Weather generators of WEPS

Author
item VAN DONK, SIMON - Iteris, Inc
item Tatarko, John
item Skidmore, Edward
item Wagner, Larry
item Fox, Jr, Fred

Submitted to: Book Chapter
Publication Type: Book / Chapter
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/11/2020
Publication Date: 9/3/2020
Citation: Van Donk, S., Tatarko, J., Skidmore, E.L., Wagner, L.E., Fox, F.A. 2020. Weather generators of WEPS. In: Tatarko, J., editor. The Wind Erosion Prediction System (WEPS): Technical Documentation. USDA Agriculture Handbook 727. United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Beltsville, MD. p. 57-84.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: The Wind Erosion Prediction System (WEPS) requires specific weather data in order to simulate the processes governing soil erosion by wind. The WEPS weather generators simulate the needed weather data through two separate computer weather models. CLIGEN is a stochastic generator of climate (weather) data, simulating daily estimates of precipitation (amount, duration, peak intensity), temperature (maximum, minimum, dewpoint), wind (direction and speed), and solar radiation. It generates these for a single geographic point, using monthly statistical parameters (means, standard deviations, skewness, etc.) derived from historic measurements. Wind is the principal driver of WEPS simulation of wind-blown sediment loss from a field. The wind parameters in CLIGEN are not adequate for WEPS and so the WINDGEN model was created to provide wind parameters needed by the WEPs model. Similar to CLIGEN, WINDGEN is a stochastic wind generator for WEPS that uses monthly parameters derived from historic measurements to generate wind, providing the unique requirements of hourly wind speeds and daily wind direction for each day of simulation. Since WINDGEN bases its generations on historical statistics of wind, it reflects the past wind histories at a given location. Station parameter files (summary statistics) to run both generators are available for several thousand U.S. locations. Details of the methods by which the weather generators simulate the required weather parameters are described in this document.