Impact of snow on sound propagating from wind turbines

Abstract The impact of snow on sound propagating from a wind farm in northern Sweden has been investigated. Simultaneous acoustic and meteorological measurements, combined with daily snow observations, have been analysed for the snow season in 2013 to 2014. Such measurements are crucial since signif...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Wind Energy
Main Authors: Conrady, Kristina, Sjöblom, Anna, Larsson, Conny
Other Authors: Energimyndigheten
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2018
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Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/we.2254
https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2Fwe.2254
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/we.2254
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Summary:Abstract The impact of snow on sound propagating from a wind farm in northern Sweden has been investigated. Simultaneous acoustic and meteorological measurements, combined with daily snow observations, have been analysed for the snow season in 2013 to 2014. Such measurements are crucial since significant knowledge gaps exist, especially for conditions in cold climates, in the implementation of atmospheric boundary layer complexity in sound propagation models. The effect of snow on sound propagation is shown to be dependent on the snow quality. Moreover, snow on trees (upplega) also has an influence on sound propagation. Compared with conditions without snow on trees, the average sound level is approximately 2 dBA lower. The effect is more distinct for higher frequencies compared with lower frequencies.