Deterministic nature of the underlying dynamics of surface wind fluctuations

Abstract. Modelling the fluctuations of the Earth's surface wind has a significant role in understanding the dynamics of atmosphere besides its impact on various fields ranging from agriculture to structural engineering. Most of the studies on the modelling and prediction of wind speed and power reported in the literature are based on statistical methods or the probabilistic distribution of the wind speed data. In this paper we investigate the suitability of a deterministic model to represent the wind speed fluctuations by employing tools of nonlinear dynamics. We have carried out a detailed nonlinear time series analysis of the daily mean wind speed data measured at Thiruvananthapuram (8.483° N,76.950° E) from 2000 to 2010. The results of the analysis strongly suggest that the underlying dynamics is deterministic, low-dimensional and chaotic suggesting the possibility of accurate short-term prediction. As most of the chaotic systems are confined to laboratories, this is another example of a naturally occurring time series showing chaotic behaviour.