A statistical verification of a ten year series of computed surface wind conditions over the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans.

• Main Author: Larson, Sigurd Erling
• Other Authors: Jung, Glenn H., Naval Postgraduate School (U.S.), Oceanography, Elsberry, Russell L.
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School 1974
• Subjects: quasi-geostrophic wind; computer model; climatology; synoptic scale; North Pacific Ocean; North Atlantic Ocean; ocean station observations; ten year trend; frequency distribution; spectra; correlation; regression; Oceanography; Pacific; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10945/17252

The increasing interest in long term (inter-annual) weather changes and their relation to processes in the ocean is beginning to illuminate the need for and the lack of long term records of physically significant variables which occur over the vast oceanic regions of the northern hemisphere. An attempt is made here to evaluate the accuracy of a hind cast time series of surface wind vector components and speeds for the period of January 1960 through December 1969. The quasi-geostrophic model used to calculate these records is described as well as the twelve-hourly surface pressure data which were used as input. The central moments of the probability distributions of the computed records are compared to those of corresponding time series observed on Ocean Station Vessels. Linear correlation coefficients between observed and computed records were found to average 0.81 for the components of the wind vector and 0.65 for the wind speed. Regression relations between computed and observed records also are presented. Spectral analysis of low pass filtered records showed coherence between observed and computed records increased with decreasing frequency. The accuracy of the computed records in low latitudes also is estimated. Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. http://archive.org/details/astatisticalveri1094517252