SAR Observation and Modeling of Gap Winds in the Prince William Sound of Alaska

Alaska's Prince William Sound (PWS) is a unique locale tending to have strong gap winds, especially in the winter season. To characterize and understand these strong surface winds, which have great impacts on the local marine and aviation activities, the surface wind retrieval from the Syntheti...

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Main Authors:	Liu, Haibo, Olsson, Peter Q, Volz, Karl
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Molecular Diversity Preservation International (MDPI) 2008
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3705478/

id	pubmed-3705478
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-37054782013-07-09 SAR Observation and Modeling of Gap Winds in the Prince William Sound of Alaska Liu, Haibo Olsson, Peter Q Volz, Karl Article Alaska's Prince William Sound (PWS) is a unique locale tending to have strong gap winds, especially in the winter season. To characterize and understand these strong surface winds, which have great impacts on the local marine and aviation activities, the surface wind retrieval from the Synthetic Aperture Radar data (SAR-wind) is combined with a numerical mesoscale model. Helped with the SAR-wind observations, the mesoscale model is used to study cases of strong winds and relatively weak winds to depict the nature of these winds, including the area of extent and possible causes of the wind regimes. The gap winds from the Wells Passage and the Valdez Arm are the most dominant gap winds in PWS. Though the Valdez Arm is north-south trending and Wells Passage is east-west oriented, gap winds often develop simultaneously in these two places when a low pressure system is present in the Northern Gulf of Alaska. These two gap winds often converge at the center of PWS and extend further out of the Sound through the Hinchinbrook Entrance. The pressure gradients imposed over these areas are the main driving forces for these gap winds. Additionally, the drainage from the upper stream glaciers and the blocking effect of the banks of the Valdez Arm probably play an important role in enhancing the gap wind. Molecular Diversity Preservation International (MDPI) 2008-08-22 /pmc/articles/PMC3705478/ /pubmed/27873792 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s8084894 Text en © 2008 by the authors; licensee Molecular Diversity Preservation International, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Liu, Haibo Olsson, Peter Q Volz, Karl
spellingShingle	Liu, Haibo Olsson, Peter Q Volz, Karl SAR Observation and Modeling of Gap Winds in the Prince William Sound of Alaska
author_facet	Liu, Haibo Olsson, Peter Q Volz, Karl
author_sort	Liu, Haibo
title	SAR Observation and Modeling of Gap Winds in the Prince William Sound of Alaska
title_short	SAR Observation and Modeling of Gap Winds in the Prince William Sound of Alaska
title_full	SAR Observation and Modeling of Gap Winds in the Prince William Sound of Alaska
title_fullStr	SAR Observation and Modeling of Gap Winds in the Prince William Sound of Alaska
title_full_unstemmed	SAR Observation and Modeling of Gap Winds in the Prince William Sound of Alaska
title_sort	sar observation and modeling of gap winds in the prince william sound of alaska
description	Alaska's Prince William Sound (PWS) is a unique locale tending to have strong gap winds, especially in the winter season. To characterize and understand these strong surface winds, which have great impacts on the local marine and aviation activities, the surface wind retrieval from the Synthetic Aperture Radar data (SAR-wind) is combined with a numerical mesoscale model. Helped with the SAR-wind observations, the mesoscale model is used to study cases of strong winds and relatively weak winds to depict the nature of these winds, including the area of extent and possible causes of the wind regimes. The gap winds from the Wells Passage and the Valdez Arm are the most dominant gap winds in PWS. Though the Valdez Arm is north-south trending and Wells Passage is east-west oriented, gap winds often develop simultaneously in these two places when a low pressure system is present in the Northern Gulf of Alaska. These two gap winds often converge at the center of PWS and extend further out of the Sound through the Hinchinbrook Entrance. The pressure gradients imposed over these areas are the main driving forces for these gap winds. Additionally, the drainage from the upper stream glaciers and the blocking effect of the banks of the Valdez Arm probably play an important role in enhancing the gap wind.
publisher	Molecular Diversity Preservation International (MDPI)
publishDate	2008
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3705478/
_version_	1611993153266515968

SAR Observation and Modeling of Gap Winds in the Prince William Sound of Alaska

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