Wind estimation based on thermal soaring of birds
Treep, J., Bohrer, G., Shamoun-Baranes, J., Duriez, O., Prata de Moraes Frasson, R., Bouten, W.
Ecology and Evolution2016 · 6(24) · 8669–8679doi:10.1002/ece3.2585
Soaring birds extract energy from the atmosphere by climbing in thermals. The authors show that GPS tracks of soaring birds can be inverted to recover wind speed and direction, with errors comparable to airport METAR stations within 30 km.
Foundational. We-Fly's wind-from-track estimator is a direct descendant of this inversion model.
Wind estimation based on thermal soaring of birds.
Ecology and Evolution.