Low-Level Cloud Radiative Forcing Enhances Wind-Farm Wake Recovery

Recent simulations and observations suggest that clouds interact with offshore wind farms, yet the physical mechanisms governing this interaction remain unclear. Here, we investigate these processes using large-eddy simulations of stratocumulus-topped boundary layers, systematically removing key forcings to isolate their physical effects. We consider three progressively simplified scenarios: (i) a fully developed marine stratocumulus boundary layer, (ii) a case without radiative forcing, which weakens both cloud-top longwave cooling and entrainment, and (iii) a clear-sky case in which both radiative forcing and liquid water are removed. The presence of cloud-top radiative cooling increases entrainment, leading to a less stable and deeper boundary layer that promotes vertical transport of momentum and energy toward the turbines. This leads to a faster wake recovery, with direct implications for the performance of neighboring wind farms. Overall, our results demonstrate that radiatively driven cloud-top entrainment is a key mechanism linking cloud dynamics to the performance of large wind farms and underscore the need for wind-energy models that explicitly represent interactions among wind farms, the atmosphere, and cloud processes.