Year-long Buoy-Based Observations of the Air–Sea Transition Zone off the U.S. West Coast

Abstract. Two buoys equipped with Doppler lidars owned by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) were deployed off the coast ofCalifornia in fall of 2020 by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The buoys collected data for an entire annual cycle at twooffshore locations proposed for offshore wind development by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. One of the buoys was deployed approximately 50 km off the coast near Morro Bay in central California in 1100 m of water. The second buoywas deployed approximately 40 km off Humboldt County in northern California in 625 m of water. The buoys provided thefirst-ever continuous measurements of the air–sea transition zone off the coast of California. The atmospheric andoceanographic characteristics of the area and estimates of annual energy production at both the Morro Bay and HumboldtWind Energy Areas show that both locations have a high wind energy yield and are prime locations for future floating offshore wind turbines. This article provides a description and comprehensive analysis of the data collected by the buoys is conducted and a final post-processed dataset is uploaded to a data archive maintained by DOE. Additional analysis was conducted to show the value of the data collected by the DOE buoys. All post-processed data from this study are currently available on the Wind Data Hub website, https://a2e.energy.gov/data#. Near-surface, wave, current, and cloud datasets for Humboldt andMorro Bay are provided at 10.21947/1783807 and 10.21947/1959715, respectively. Lidar datasets for Humboldt and Morro Bay are provided at 10.21947/1783809 and 10.21947/1959721, respectively.