Using satellite data, a team of Australian scientists have found that average global wind speed increased between 5 and 10 percent over the last two decades.
On March 25 Professors Ian Young, Alex Barbanin and Stefan Zieger of Swiburne University of Technology published an article in Science entitled Global Trends in Wind Speed and Wave Height (available to subscribers here). The abstract of the article states:
Studies of climate change typically consider measurements or predictions of temperature over extended periods of time. Climate, however, is much more than temperature. Over the oceans, changes in wind speed and the surface gravity waves generated by such winds play an important role. We used a 23-year database of calibrated and validated satellite altimeter measurements to investigate global changes in oceanic wind speed and wave height over this period. We find a general global trend of increasing values of wind speed and, to a lesser degree, wave height, over this period. The rate of increase is greater for extreme events as compared to the mean condition.
A 21-page appendix showing the research methodology is posted online here.
The scientists' findings are described in a press release from the University entitled Wind and waves growing across the globe.  The University states that its researchers found that wind speed and wave height was steadily increasing:
The data showed that wind speeds over the majority of the worldâs oceans increased by 0.25 to 0.5 per cent every year. For extremely high winds, speed increased by a yearly average of 0.75 per cent.The global increase in wave height was most significant for extreme waves, with the largest one per cent increasing by an average of 0.5 per cent every year. However in some parts of the ocean, extreme waves increased by up to one per cent per annum.
In other words, average wind speed and wave height is increasing at an alarming rate – but the magnitude of extremely high winds and waves is increasing even faster.
Professor Babanin is quoted:
âFor example, today the average height of the top one per cent of waves off south-west Australiaâs coastline is around six metres. Thatâs over one metre higher than in 1985.â
According to Yale Environment 360, a publication of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, the researchers found that average wind speed had increased 5 to 10 percent between 1985 and 2008. It quotes Professor Young as stating that the change may be attributable to global warming:
âIf we have oceans that are warming, that energy could feed storms, which increase wind speeds and wave heights.â
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I will assume that all of these observations are legitimate and not faked or tricked up like the climategate nonsense.
We are constantly learning new things about our environment. It is not realistic to pretend that we were watching as closely 20 years ago as we are now and to pretend that we understood what we saw like we understand it now.
For centuries sailors reported rogue waves, a large wave that was 2 to 3 times the size of other waves. This claim was viewed skeptically. It was thought to be a convenient excuse for operator error. As well as the assumption that the sailors who saw the worst examples probably didn't make it back to report them.
Scientists used the linear model to "prove" that these did not and could not exist. Of course that all changed on January 1, 1995 (Less than 2 decades ago) when the first scientific equipment measured a rogue wave on the Draupner oil platform in the North Sea. Now we know what to look for and know there are areas where these are fairly regular occurrences.
The fact is we do not have good baseline data from 20 years ago. You have to know what you don't know.
If nothing else, this should create more interest in researching and developing practical systems to convert those seemingly increasing natural forces into usable electrical energy. On the down side, perhaps we should take another look at how we build and live in the coastal areas.
In 2007 Wentz et al. looked at rain, both as modeled by GCMs and as measured.
GCMs predict that rain will increase some 1-3% per degree C of warming. However, satellite data since 1987 show an increase of 7% per degree, an amount somewhere between 2.3 and 7 times larger than what is predicted by climate models.
Theoretically, the only way to bring the two results in harmony would be through a decrease in global wind speeds by some 0.8% per decade. Unfortunately, data shows just the opposite, an increase of 1% per decade. The current study by Young also finds increasing global wind speeds.
Wentz writes "the reason for the discrepancy between the observational data and the GCMs is not clear." He also states that this dramatic difference between the real world of nature and the virtual world of climate modeling "has enormous impact with respect to the consequences of global warming" concluding that the questions raised by the discrepancy "are far from being settled."
How Much More Rain Will Global Warming Bring?
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/317/5835/233
Sounds like no one knows much of anything when it comes to the climate. Let's sink about five trillion into fixing it, then we can fix what we screw up 50 years down the line. That's worked out great in the Everglades.
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