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Wind power is seen as one of the most effective means available to combat the twin crises of global climate change and energy security. The annual market growth has established wind power as the leading renewable energy technology. Due to the availability of sparsely populated and flat open terrain, the Yucatán Peninsula located in eastern México is a promising region from the perspective of wind energy development but no comprehensive assessment of wind resource has been previously published. A basic requirement when developing wind power projects is to study the main characteristic parameters of wind in relation to its geographical and temporal distribution. The analysis of diurnal and seasonal wind patterns are an important stage in the move towards commercial exploitation of wind power. The research developed during the PhD has comprehensively assessed the wind behaviour over the Yucatán Peninsula region covering long term patterns at three sites, a spatial study using short term data for nine sites, a vertical profile study on one inland site and an offshore study made on a pier at 6.65km from the North shore. Monthly trends, directional behaviours and frequency distributions were identified and discussed. The characteristics of the wind speed variation reflected their proximity to the coast and whether they were influenced by wind coming predominantly from over the land or predominantly from over the sea. The atmospheric stability over the eastern seas was also analysed to assess thermal effects for different wind directions. Diurnal wind speed variations are shown to be affected in particular by the differing wind conditions associated with fetches over two distinct offshore regions. Seasonal behaviour suggests some departure from the oscillations expected from temperature variation. The offshore wind is thermally driven suggesting largely unstable conditions and the potential development of a shallow Stable Internal Boundary Layer.

No region has felt the effects of global climate change more acutely than the cryosphere, which has changed at an unprecedented rate in the past two decades. The scientific consensus is that these changes are driven largely by increasing ocean heat content at high latitudes. In southeast Greenland, acceleration and retreat of the marine-terminating glaciers contributes significantly towards global sea level rise. Circulation in the fjords which accommodate these glaciers is thought to be driven both by freshwater input and by barrier wind-driven shelf exchange. Due to a scarcity of data, particularly from winter, the balance between these two mechanisms is not fully understood. In Svalbard, increasing water temperature has decimated sea ice cover in many of the fjords, and had substantial implications for the local ecosystem. While there is a relatively comprehensive literature on shelf exchange mechanisms in Svalbard fjords, questions remain over how the internal circulation interacts with exchange mechanisms. The region shares a similar underwater topography and oceanographic setting with southeast Greenland, with marine-terminating glaciers in close proximity to warm Atlantic waters, and results from Svalbard can hence be used to inform studies of high-latitude fjord-shelf exchange in a broader context. A realistic numerical model was constructed with the aim of better understanding the interaction between Kangerdlugssuaq Fjord and the adjacent continental shelf, and quantifying heat exchange during winter. The model was initially run in an idealised configuration with winter climatological forcing fields, incorporating a parameterisation for melting at the terminus, and used to test the impact of barrier wind events. The Earth's rotation played a crucial role in the nature of the circulation and exchange in the fjord, with inflow on the right (looking up-fjord) and outflow on the left. While the heat delivered into the fjord-mouth was smaller than that observed in summer, the background internal circulation was found to efficiently distribute waters through the fjord without external forcing, and the heat delivered to the glacier terminus was comparable to summer values. Barrier winds were found to excite coastally-trapped internal waves which propagated into the fjord along the right-hand side. The process was capable of doubling the heat delivery. The process also enhanced the background circulation, likely via Stokes' Drift. The model was then adapted to simulate winter 2007-08 under historical forcing conditions. Time series of glacial melt rate, as well as the heat flux through fjord cross-sections, were constructed and compared to the variability in wind forcing. Long periods of moderate wind stress were found to induce greatly enhanced heat flux towards the ice sheet, while short, strong gusts were found to have little influence, suggesting that the timescale over which the shelf wind field varies is a key parameter in dictating wintertime heat delivery from the ocean to the Greenland Ice Sheet. An underwater glider was deployed to Isfjorden, a large fjord system in Svalbard, to measure the temperature, salinity and depth-averaged currents over the course of November 2014. Like in Kangerdlugssuaq, the circulation in Isfjorden was found to be heavily influenced by the Earth's rotation and by wind activity both locally and on the shelf. The combination of hydrography and high-resolution velocity data provided new insights, suggesting that the approach will be useful for studying high-latitude fjords in the future.

The objective of this work is to characterize the patterns of wind in the state of Alagoas, assessing whether conditions are favorable for electricity generation through aerogenerators, and relate these patterns with local parameters, observing the behavior of atmospheric stability through different methods. We sought for determine the seasonal pattern of wind speed and direction, air temperature, intensity of turbulence and squall factor of three distinct regions of the state: Sertão, Agreste and Litoral, and evaluate the behavior of atmospheric stability in its annual cycle through the calculation of stability parameters. Daily, monthly and annual means cycles of meteorological variables that could possibly describe the wind pattern in the state of Alagoas were examined. The founded patterns were rather different among the three regions, and the most satisfactory wind behavior for wind power production was found in the Agreste region (Girau do Ponciano). The Sertão region (Água Branca), demonstrated an influence of an usual annual Brazilian Northeast wind system known as Aracati. The Aracati leads the wind speeds to reach its maximum values during the night period, what is found to be an unusual behavior. There were positive associations between air temperature peaks and wind speed in many seasons, and positive associations among the prevalence between NE and SE (interval where the sea breeze effect is predominant) and the maximum values of wind speed, indicating a possible wind intensification due to the sea breeze. It was found a decrease of the wind speed in land breeze occurrences, indicating that the southern trade winds tend to reduce the wind speed in the coastal region, and sometimes bringing land breezes occurrences to vanish. The wind speed patterns were higher in stations placed inland(Girau Ponciano, Palmeira dos Índios and Água Branca) than the coastal stations (Feliz Deserto, Roteiro e Maragogi), possibly because the inland stations are placed in higher altitudes. The atmospheric turbulence recorded in the six stations showed relatively lower values than those found in the literature, which is a good indicator for wind power usage . The atmospheric stability in Feliz Deserto was greater during the summer, decreasing with the winter approaching, and the stability estimation by the Richardson number and Brunt-Vaisala frequency methods were quite consistent, showing a maximum variation of 5% between them. / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Este trabalho teve o objetivo de caracterizar os padrões de vento no Estado de Alagoas, avaliando se existem condições propicias para a geração de energia elétrica através de aerogeradores no Estado, e relacionar os padrões de vento com parâmetros locais, observando o comportamento da estabilidade atmosférica através de diferentes métodos. Procurou-se determinar o padrão sazonal da velocidade e direção do vento, temperatura do ar, intensidade de turbulência e fator de rajadas em três regiões distintas do Estado: Litoral, Agreste e Sertão, e avaliar o comportamento da estabilidade atmosférica no seu ciclo anual através do cálculo de parâmetros de estabilidade. Foram analisados ciclos médios diários, mensais e anuais de variáveis meteorológicas que pudessem descrever o padrão de vento no Estado de Alagoas. O padrão evidenciado foi relativamente diferente entre as regiões, tendo seu comportamento para aproveitamento eólico se mostrado mais satisfatório na região do Agreste (Girau do Ponciano). A região do Sertão (Água Branca) evidenciou uma influência anual de um regime de ventos comum na região Nordeste Brasileira, conhecido como Aracati, que faz com que as velocidades do vento obtenham seus máximos no período noturno, o que é um fato fora do padrão. Houve associações positivas entre picos de temperatura do ar e de velocidade do vento em muitas estações, e associações positivas com as predominâncias entre NE e SE (intervalo onde se encontra a predominância do efeito de brisa marítima) e os máximos valores de velocidade do vento, indicando uma possível intensificação do vento através da brisa marítima. Foi observada uma frenagem da velocidade do vento em situações de brisa terrestre, indicando que os ventos alísios tendem a diminuir a velocidade do vento na região Litorânea, e por vezes desconfigurar a ocorrência da brisa terrestre. Os padrões de velocidade do vento foram maiores nas estações situadas no interior (Girau do Ponciano, Palmeira dos Índios e Água Branca) do que no Litoral (Feliz Deserto, Roteiro e Maragogi), possivelmente devido às estações localizadas no interior estarem em maiores altitudes. A turbulência atmosférica nas seis estações apresentou valores relativamente menores do que os encontrados na literatura, sendo um bom indicativo para aproveitamento eólico. A estabilidade atmosférica em Feliz Deserto se mostrou maior durante o Verão, diminuindo à medida que se aproxima o Inverno, sendo que a estimativa da estabilidade pelos métodos do número de Richardson e da freqüência de Brunt- Vaisala foram bastante coerentes, apresentando no máximo 5% de diferença entre eles.