Surface Wind Speed Patterns Across the Globe
From a High Resolution Simulation of Present Day Earth Using the Community Earth System Model
This visualization shows the magnitude of wind speed over the course of one year from atmosphere-only simulations of the high resolution (horizontal ¼ degree) Community Earth System Model.
Storms propagate through the mid-latitudes in both hemispheres.
Sharp lines in the wind field are weather fronts tied to these storms.
Wind speeds are higher over the ocean and are reduced by surface friction after storms make landfall.
Land masses in the Northern Hemisphere slow storm propagation in the mid-latitudes…
…whereas in the Southern Hemisphere, strong westerly winds are unhindered between 40-50 degrees south…
…giving rise to the term "the roaring 40s."
The Hawaiian Islands sit in the path of the Trade Winds, creating a wind shadow on the leeward (downwind) side of the islands.
Tropical cyclones (visible as red disks) are born in warm tropical waters and are steered primarily by atmospheric flow.
It's not uncommon to have multiple tropical cyclones in the Pacific at the same time.
Trade Winds flowing east to west near the equator nudge storms westward, causing some to make landfall.
Tropical cyclones that stray out of the tropics can be captured by synoptic storms, curving them eastward and transporting large amounts of heat, moisture, and energy to higher latitudes.
This research used resources of the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility at Argonne National Laboratory, which is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under contract DE-AC02-06CH11357.
Computing resources (ark:/85065/d7wd3xhc) were provided by the Climate Simulation Laboratory at NCAR's Computational and Information Systems Laboratory, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and other agencies.
An award of computer time was provided by the Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program.
This research was supported by the Regional and Global Climate Modeling Program (RGCM) of the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science (BER), Cooperative Agreement DE-FC02-97ER62402.
Earth imagery courtesy of NASA Visible Earth.
Data Simulation: Susan Bates and Nan Rosenbloom (NCAR/CGD)
Visualization and Post-Production: Matt Rehme (NCAR/CISL)
The National Center for Atmospheric Research is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
© 2023 UCAR
Any opinions, findings and conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.