one last qustion from my dad stephanie: does the data from wind patterns and weather streams indicate any periodicity

Question: one last qustion from my dad stephanie: does the data from wind patterns and weather streams indicate any periodicity when fast fourier transformed and also looking for intermodulion products relating to the rotational speed of the earth or is it totally random. if not why do waves display simple harmonic when generated by the wind?
- Keywords:
  data,
  earth,
  fourier,
  patterns,
  periodicity,
  speed,
  waves,
  weather,
  wind
Asked by McDonald_drive_thru_worke to Aileen, Christopher, Stephanie on 16 Mar 2018.
- Aileen Baird answered on 16 Mar 2018:
  
  I’ll leave this one to Stephanie to answer!
- Christopher Nankervis answered on 16 Mar 2018:
  
  This is a challenging question. Wind patterns in the atmosphere are chaotic, but have some periods and cycles like a sine wave. The waves are not regular and have lots of random wiggles that are not like a sine or cosine wave what-so-ever.
- Stephanie Mann answered on 16 Mar 2018:
  
  wow… again, your dad sounds like a smart man! So, my best answer is that fourier transformations are really good at seeing the different exact frequencies that make up a signal wave. This works really well for some signals like from light waves, sound waves and other things that are made up of discrete frequencies. Now the wind is very very turbulent. There are certain frequencies like daily cycles and monthly cycles. At low, turbulent wavelengths though there aren’t any discrete patterns, it’s all forced by frictional and turbulent forces.
  To answer your question about waves displaying simple harmonic motion when generated by the wind… well the answer is I don’t know, but I know that wind-wave interactions are difficult to model because it’s something we are always trying to do well in the offshore wind industry!