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REPORTS
Using satellite data, we detected a wind wake trailing westward behind the Hawaiian Islands for 3000 kilometers, a length many times greater than observed anywhere else on Earth. This wind wake drives an eastward ocean current that draws warm water from the Asian coast 8000 kilometers away, leaving marked changes in surface and subsurface ocean temperature. Standing in the path of the steady trade winds, Hawaii triggers an air-sea interaction that provides the feedback to sustain the influence of these small islands over a long stretch of the Pacific Ocean.
References and Notes
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2. M. H. Freilich, Orographically Modified Winds Observed by the NASA Scatterometer (1997) (available at www.oce.orst.edu/po/research/mhf/.
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5. T. P. DeFelice, D. J. Meyer, G. Xian, J. Christopherson, R. Cahalan, Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 81, 1047 (2000). 6. W. T. Liu, X. Xie, P. S. Polito, S.-P. Xie, H. Hashizume, Geophys. Res. Lett. 27, 2545 (2000).
7. The winds on and near the Big Island have been the focus of previous field campaigns (25, 26). Reduced wind speed on the windward side of the Big Island results from orographic blocking (Fig. 1). The strongest winds are found between Maui and the Big Island, reaching 11 m/s in the monthly-mean map of Fig. 1 in comparison to the...