NASA ocean windpower maps

[kristopher]

Ocean Wind Power Maps
Maps show potential areas where winds might produce energy.


Efforts to harness the energy potential of Earth's ocean winds could soon gain an important new tool: global satellite maps from NASA. Scientists have been creating maps using nearly a decade of data from NASA's QuikScat satellite that reveal ocean areas where winds could produce energy.

The new maps have many potential uses including planning the location of offshore wind farms to convert wind energy into electric energy. The research, published this week in Geophysical Research Letters, was funded by NASA's Earth Science Division, which works to advance the frontiers of scientific discovery about Earth, its climate and its future. ...

http://geology.com/nasa/ocean-wind-power-maps.shtml

[HooptieWagon]

1. I wonder how much they paid for that info?

Sailors have known for about the past 600 years or so...

[Citizen Number 9]

2. Maybe NASA just needed maps without

"Here there be monsters" on them.

Also, it doesn't hurt to get actual data values, particularly if you are planning an engineering project.

[HamdenRice]

5. Arrgggghhhh, Arrggghhhh.... matey!

That be a good one!

[kristopher]

4. This is original, first of a kind data.

It is extremely valuable for climate prediction and analysis as well as wind energy resource assessment. It is 3D over time with a considerable detail available.

[HooptieWagon]

6. My point is sailors know where reliable winds are.

Trade wind belt - yes, the Carribean would be a good place for wind turbines... the Gulf Coast, not so good. Southern Ocean, good, Equator, not good. Hell, we can even get NA specific - Kansas, OK, and Plains states - good... FL, GA, and SC, not good. Hey, it's fine that they got all scientific and stuff, but when the results only confirm the obvious it makes NASA look like a bunch of idiots. What's next, a NASA Study that concludes water is wet?

[kristopher]

8. NASA doesn't "look like a bunch of idiots"; you on the other hand...

Are doing a damned fine impression of one. The data that is available through nav charts is one source that is used. So are the data sets provided by NOAA buoy weather stations; there is even a project underway to correlate the shipboard weather data that is routinely recorded and reported. However, all of that data is spotty, poorly documented, scattered in a variety of locations, and obtained with specific purposes in mind - none of which was to calculate the energy resource that is available to be extracted from wind.

I'm not sure what your goal is in trying to denigrate something you obviously don't understand, but I do know what you are actually achieving...

[HooptieWagon]

7. here's 600 years of data for you

http://www.landfallnavigation.com/gpilotatl.html

[quidam56]

3. Why does America have to catch up ?

It's ridiculous how far ahead everyone in the world is ahead of America, what happened to us ? http://www.wisecountyissues.com

[One_Life_To_Give]

9. Worship Superbowl Champs more than Nobel Laureates nt

[Laelth]

10. I hope we can keep the wind industry out of Georgia.

Wind Power BLOWS.

See the following:
http://www.keepersoftheblueridge.com/faqs.html
http://www.nortexwind.org/index.htm
http://www.stopillwind.org/index.php
http://windconcernsontario.wordpress.com/
http://www.savewesternny.org/
http://www.epaw.org/

Or just watch this series of videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNxvkrgoPLo&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_utFV2ukOtU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOd5tSZF3A4&feature=related

There's more, but you get the idea. :)

The United States is a LIBERAL Country.

:dem:

-Laelth