Roughness length and drag coefficient at two MONTBLEX-90 tower stations

Using MONTBLEX-90 mean velocity data, roughness lengths and drag coefficients are estimated at Jodhpur and Kharagpur. At Jodhpur, since the surface is not uniform the roughness length is estimated separately in three different subsectors within the range of prevailing wind directions and averages to 1.23 cm in the sector between 200° and 230° which is relatively flat with no obstacles on the ground. At Kharagpur, where the terrain is more nearly homogeneous, the average value (for all prevailing wind directions) is 1.94 cm. The drag coefficient C_D at Jodhpur shows variation both with the roughness subsector and with wind speed, the average over all directions increasing rapidly as themean wind speed Ū₁₀ at 10m height drops according to the power lawC _D = 0.05 Ū ₁₀ ^t-1.09 in trie range 0.5 < Ū₁₀ < 7 m s⁻¹. At Kharagpur, the drag coefficient is smaller than at Jodhpur by nearly 50% for the same range of wind speeds (> 3 ms⁻¹).