Climatic Comparisons of Estimated and Measured Winds from Ships

Abstract

Wind speed records from twelve Ocean Weather Stations (OWS's) are compared to estimates from transient ships in the general vicinity of the on-station OWS position. Measured and estimated winds from transient ships within specified areas are also intercompared. The analysis is climatic rather than synoptic. The entire frequency distribution of wind speeds is computed from all available observations without regard to temporal simultaneity. The comparison is of long-term climatologies. The results show good agreement between OWS records and the estimated winds as reported in whole knots. The intercomparison between measurements and estimates from transient ships shows less satisfactory agreement for lower wind speeds, but fair agreement for higher values. An evaluation of a proposed new conversion scale for estimates shows some possible improvement at lower wind speeds, but unsatisfactory results in the higher ranges.