Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 14239–14252, 2017 https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-14239-2017 © Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Spatiotemporal distribution of nitrogen dioxide within and around a large-scale wind farm – a numerical case study Jingyue Mo1,2, Tao Huang1, Xiaodong Zhang1, Yuan Zhao1, Xiao Liu2, Jixiang Li1,2, Hong Gao1, and Jianmin Ma1,3,4 1Key Laboratory for Environmental Pollution Prediction and Control, Gansu Province, College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China 2College of Atmospheric Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China 3Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China 4CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China Correspondence to: Jianmin Ma (
[email protected]) and Tao Huang (
[email protected]) Received: 24 July 2017 – Discussion started: 14 August 2017 Revised: 24 October 2017 – Accepted: 29 October 2017 – Published: 1 December 2017 Abstract. As a renewable and clean energy source, wind rough surfaces (overshooting) in the upstream of the wind power has become the most rapidly growing energy resource farm decelerates the atmospheric transport of air pollutants, worldwide in the past decades. Wind power has been thought leading to their accumulation. The rough to the smooth sur- not to exert any negative impacts on the environment. How- face (undershooting) in the downstream of the wind farm ac- ever, since a wind farm can alter the local meteorological celerates the atmospheric transport of air pollutants, resulting conditions and increase the surface roughness lengths, it may in lower concentration level.