Roughness length

Roughness length (${\displaystyle z_{0}}$) is a parameter used in modeling the horizontal mean wind speed near the ground. In wind vertical profile such the log wind profile, the roughness length (with dimension of length and SI unit of metres) is equivalent to the height at which the wind speed theoretically becomes zero in the absence of wind-slowing obstacles and under neutral conditions. In reality, the wind at this height no longer follows a logarithm. It is so named because it is typically related to the height of terrain roughness elements (i.e. protrusions from and/or depressions into the surface). For instance, forests tend to have much larger roughness lengths than tundra. The roughness length does not exactly correspond to any physical length; however, it can be considered as a length-scale representation of the roughness of the surface.^[1]