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- Title
The Probability Distribution of Land Surface Wind Speeds.
- Authors
Monahan, Adam H.; Yanping He; McFarlane, Norman; Dai, Aiguo
- Abstract
The probability density function (pdf) of land surface wind speeds is characterized using a global network of observations. Daytime surface wind speeds are shown to be broadly consistent with the Weibull distribution, while nighttime surface wind speeds are generally more positively skewed than the corresponding Weibull distribution (particularly in summer). In the midlatitudes, these strongly positive skewnesses are shown to be generally associated with conditions of strong surface stability and weak lower-tropospheric wind shear. Long-term tower observations from Cabauw, the Netherlands, and Los Alamos, New Mexico, demonstrate that lower-tropospheric wind speeds become more positively skewed than the corresponding Weibull distribution only in the shallow (~50 m) nocturnal boundary layer. This skewness is associated with two populations of nighttime winds: (i) strongly stably stratified with strong wind shear and (ii) weakly stably or unstably stratified with weak wind shear. Using an idealized two-layer model of the boundary layer momentum budget, it is shown that the observed variability of the daytime and nighttime surface wind speeds can be accounted for through a stochastic representation of intermittent turbulent mixing at the nocturnal boundary layer inversion.
- Subjects
WIND speed; GLOBAL Telecommunication System (Meteorology); WEIBULL distribution; ATMOSPHERIC boundary layer; DIURNAL atmospheric pressure variations; TROPOSPHERIC circulation; TURBULENCE
- Publication
Journal of Climate, 2011, Vol 24, Issue 15, p3892
- ISSN
0894-8755
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1175/2011JCLI4106.1