During large El Niño events the westerly wind response to the eastern equatorial Pacific sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs) shifts southward during boreal winter and early spring, reaching latitudes of 58–78S. The resulting meridional asymmetry, along with a related seasonal weakening of wind anomalies on the equator are key elements in the termination of strong El Niño events. Using an ...

BACKGROUND Long-lived seabirds face a conflict between current and lifelong reproductive success. During incubation shifts, egg neglect is sometimes necessary to avoid starvation, but may compromise the current reproductive attempt. However, factors underlying this decision process are poorly understood. We focus on the ancient murrelet, Synthliboramphus antiquus, an alcid with exceptionally lo...

The airborne coherent Doppler lidar could provide the wind velocity relative to the motion of the lidar. The retrieval algorithms are complex corresponding to Ground-based lidar, due to the Doppler shift caused by mobile platform. This article gives a thorough analysis of the wind retrieval algorithms for the wind products of airborne Doppler lidar, include the correction for the lidar velocity...

SODAR stands for SOund Detection And Ranging. A SODAR uses sound pulses at a frequency of about 2kHz to detect turbulence and measure wind speeds. Turbulence in the atmosphere reflects a portion of the acoustic energy back towards the ground. The SODAR measures the strength, time delay and doppler shift of these echoes. The time delay of the echo determines the height from which the echo return...

Fidelity and projected changes in the climate models, used for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), are assessed with regard to the Southern Hemisphere extratropical ocean and sea ice systems. While individual models span different physical parameterizations and resolutions, a major component of intermodel variability results from surface wind dif...

The response of the Southern Hemisphere (SH), extratropical, atmospheric general circulation to transient, anthropogenic, greenhouse warming is investigated in a coupled climate model. The extratropical circulation response consists of a SH summer half-year poleward shift of the westerly jet and a year-round positive wind anomaly in the stratosphere and the tropical upper troposphere. Along wit...

Wind-energy production may be expanded beyond regions with high-average wind speeds (such as the Midwest U.S.A.) to sites with lower-average speeds (such as the Southeast U.S.A.) by locating favorable regional matches between natural wind-speed and energy-demand patterns. A critical component of wind-power evaluation is to incorporate wind-speed dynamics reflecting documented diurnal and season...