"Surface winds" refers to the movement of air near the Earth's surface. It's the wind we feel on our skin or see moving leaves or grass.
Full definition
This effect also increases with increasing temperature difference and with increasing
surface wind speed.
When
surface winds blow at speeds of over 15 miles per hour (24 kilometers), small particles get picked up and bounce across the surface.
Scientists
say surface wind speeds have dropped by as much as 20 % since the 1970s.
A maximum
surface wind speed is determined after the application of a number of rules and constraints.
Within two general circulation models, this energy is almost entirely supplied
by surface winds.
AOML research has produced accurate, timely maps
of surface winds in hurricanes.
Additionally, a southward shift of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current is projected to occur in a 15 - member multi-model ensemble, due to changes
in surface winds in a future warmer climate (Fyfe and Saenko, 2005).
An assessment of the SST influence on
surface wind stress in numerical weather prediction and climate models
Polar continental air affects the British Isles when pressure is high over Scandinavia with
surface winds from an easterly direction (see Figure 6).
Snapshots of
near surface wind speed in simulations of spherical rotating radiative convective equilibrium, as described in Merlis et al 2016.
The NSCAT data
on surface wind direction and speed (wind vectors) are superposed atop an infrared cloud image from the Japanese meteorological satellite GMS - 5.
Another presenter at the session, Paul Chang, a project scientist who studies satellite ocean
surface wind data at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Center for Weather and Climate Prediction in College Park, Md., said that the current method that is largely used by U.S. scientists in this area of research, known as the Dvorak technique, employs satellite imagery to estimate tropical cyclone intensity but is imprecise and subjective.
[2000](hereafter as EJN) address multidecadal changes of Atlantic basin major hurricanes - those tropical cyclones with maximum
sustained surface winds of at least 50 m / s.
This air mass affects Britain when pressure is high over northern or eastern Europe
with surface winds between east and south drawing hot air from North Africa (see Figure 5).
There are three large average
surface wind patterns few know about: the tropical easterlies (tradewinds), the midlatitude westerlies and the polar easterlies, but variability results in significant weather changes.
Bentamy A., K B. Katsaros, M. Alberto, W. M. Drennan, E. B. Forde, 2002: Daily
surface wind fields produced by merged satellite data.
Any contribution to
average surface wind speed from CO2's radiative capability relative to the overturning of atmospheric mass induced by conduction and convection would be magnitudes less and impossible to measure.
The satellites
measure surface winds near the inner core of a hurricane, such as between the eyewall and the most intense bands of rain, at least a couple of times a day.
The cold conveyor belt travels westwards relative to an eastwards travelling system resulting in weak earth - relative winds, except if it hooks all the way around the system to the west of the system centre — in this case you can see very
strong surface winds associated with the cold conveyor belt.»
The required bulk variables such
as surface wind speed (W10) and specific air humidity (Qa10) at 10m height are both estimated from remotely sensed measurements.
Notably the pattern of
increased surface wind in the mid-Pacific is nearly identical in CCMP and OAFlux, two top blended data sets, but is misrepresented in the other data sets, including the various reanalyses.
A tropical cyclone is the generic term for a non-frontal synoptic scale low - pressure system over tropical or sub-tropical waters with organized convection (i.e. thunderstorm activity) and definite cyclonic
surface wind circulation (Holland 1993).
ASCAT satellite -
derived surface wind data from the time of the spill confirms the wind was blowing from the north and east, consistent with the trajectory seen in these images.
The mechanistic representation of dust emission allows its simulation under different climates, where high
resolution surface wind reanalyses are not available for tuning.
Estimating maximum global land
surface wind power extractability and associated climatic consequences Miller, Lee; Gans, Fabian; and Kleidon, Axel
The
prevailing surface winds over the tropical Pacific blow from east - to - west (easterlies), and tend drive a surface current, pushing (advecting) the warm surface water westward.
Because of shortcomings in the observations, SREX stated that confidence in
surface wind trends is low.
The studies have found that lower solar surface radiation in China is due to a combination of higher air pollution in the area and
lower surface winds in China.
It was a remarkable intuition to extrapolate
surface winds into a three dimensional model (Figure 3).
Regular examination of impact sites on Mars help scientists to study what minerals sit beneath the surface, and to track how
surface winds affect fine particles of material.
Changes in
surface winds due to El Nino and La Nina, the North Atlantic Oscillation and Pacific Decadal Oscillation affect upwelling (Ishii 2002).
Strong
surface winds cause surface currents at a 45 ° angle to the wind direction, by an effect known as the Ekman Spiral.
Robert Vautard at the Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences in Saclay, France, and colleagues
analysed surface wind speed data for the last 30 years, from 822 sites worldwide.
«Our results demonstrate that
surface winds react to modest subtropical SST variations as small as a few tenths of a degree,» the authors write.
«I suspect this might not be any more complicated than our just not having the models right — that
surface winds just blow in the opposite direction than we think.