Data from NASA’s QuickScat satellite has fueled new research on the high winds that blow across the world’s oceans. The research at the International Pacific Research Center maps where gale force winds are common.
This research is being put to use for ocean navigation, for marine resource management, for safety and rescue efforts, and for renewable energy efforts to harness this resource. Maps of these findings, as well as wind data, can be downloaded from this site.
Among the researchers’ findings:
- Earth’s windiest ocean location is Cape Farewell, Greenland
- Half of the top 10 windiest spots occur where tall coastlines or high mountains meet the sea
- Strong winds are much more frequent on the warm side of cold-warm fronts formed where the Atlantic’s warm Gulf Stream flows northward into cold ocean regions. This gives climate scientists important clues about how sharp differences in ocean surface temperatures affect the atmosphere, with warm ocean temperatures creating an unstable atmosphere that sucks strong winds down from aloft.
- Typhoons and hurricanes have little impact on the frequency of overall high winds, since they are less frequent than other types of storms in Earth’s mid-latitudes.
