Ocean waves shape winds close to the surface and extend their impact throughout the atmospheric boundary layer. In this study, we built a new modeling tool that allows simulations to follow the moving wave surface itself. By testing different wave and wind conditions, we show how waves change air motion, turbulence, and energy exchange above the ocean. This approach improves our ability to represent air–sea interactions, with implications for weather studies and offshore wind energy.

Waves interact with the overlying wind field by modifying the stresses at the atmosphere–ocean interface. We develop and employ a parameterization method of wave-induced stresses in the numerical simulation of an offshore wind farm in a stable atmospheric boundary layer. This work demonstrates how swells change the kinetic energy transport and induce wind veer and wake deflection, leading to significant variations in the power output of wind turbines at different positions of the wind farm.

Strong low-altitude winds, known as low-level jets (LLJs), significantly impact offshore wind turbines. We analyzed LLJs at the FINO1 site using LiDAR observations and reanalysis data. Our results show that models tend to underestimate LLJ intensity. To address this, we introduced a new method to characterize wind profiles and applied a correction to 50 years of reanalysis data, yielding a more accurate long-term representation of these wind features.

We developed a new wind turbine wake model, the Simple Actuator Disc for Large Eddy Simulation (SADLES), integrated with the widely used Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. WRF-SADLES accurately simulates wind turbine wakes at resolutions of a few dozen meters, aligning well with idealized simulations and observational measurements. This makes WRF-SADLES a promising tool for wind energy research, offering a balance between accuracy, computational efficiency, and ease of implementation.

Wind turbine wake studies often rely on engineering models, which consist of simple analytical expressions. We review an atmospheric event resulting in a strong wind flow change within tens of minutes and apply several wake models to see how they respond to new conditions. We find that two models are consistent with their predictions, and one of them, the super-Gaussian model, predicts the wake shape particularly well; more attention should be paid to its development and implementation.