Title: The Large-Scale Coastal Wind Field and Sea Level Response Along the West Coast of North America Abstract approved:

Summer wind fluctuations (obtained from measurement stations and calculated from FNOC surface pressure analyses) along the west coast of North America are driven primarily by the interaction between two relatively stationary pressure systems, the North Pacific subtropical high and southwest U.S. thermal low, and by their interactions with propagating atmospheric systems to the north. Winter wind fluctuations are primarily driven by propagating cyclones and anticyclones, and tend to have larger variance and space scales than in summer. Coastal atmospheric boundary layer processes substantially modify winds within 100-200 km of the coast. The FNOC calculated winds represent fluctuations with alongshore wavelengths 900 km rather well, but poorly represent those with smaller wavelengths and those due to coastal atmospheric boundary layer effects. Fluctuations in alongshore wind stress (t) are relatively energetic at alongshore wavenumbers 121 1.1 x cpk