• Indhold

Wind

Written by Merete Bruun Christiansen and Charlotte Bay Hasager

The ceaseless wind!

With these words of John Dutton, the grand old man in meteorology, it is clear that the wind is one of the most persistent phenomena in the atmosphere.
In older times (up to the 1970s), the daily radio weather forecast from the Danish Meteorological Institute would sound: 'Strong winds from the Northwest….' followed by information on precipitation, and finally air temperature.

Wind

Today a brief radio weather forecast typically reverses the order: air temperature first, then precipitation, and ohh gosh, sometimes totally omits information on winds!

This in particular is not acceptable for ships and other people working at sea, hence these people obtain more detailed wind information from other sources.

Galathea 1 was a sailing ship at which a sextant was used for navigation.

For Galathea 2 a sextant and information on winds through telegraph and radio was used.

Galathea 3 is the first cruise for which near-real-time satellite images of ocean winds will be available on-board as well as in the classroom.

Figure 1 View from a ship. Click to enlarge.