Part one gives a description of the characteristics of the wind field over the ocean, including wind shear, turbulence and coherence. It shows how these parameters are modeled and used as an input to wind turbine analyses. The long-term statistics of the mean wind speed are discussed as well as the most common principles for wind speed measurements. In part two, the kinematics and dynamics of ocean waves are given in a form which in subsequent chapters is used in computing wave loads on structures, both in time and frequency domain. Long- and short-term wave statistics are discussed.

Given the easy embodiment of water vapor in air and its short residence times, the lower atmosphere is one of the critical pathways in the global hydrologic cycle; it transports water and energy around the globe without regard to continental boundaries and thus links the continents, the upper atmosphere, and the oceans. The transport and distribution of water vapor in the lower atmosphere, where it is most abundantly present, are among the main factors controlling precipitation and evaporation from the surface; these processes, in turn, determine soil and groundwater storage, and the different runoff phenomena. For purposes of practical analysis, the lower atmosphere can be treated as a turbulent boundary layer, allowing the application of similarity techniques to describe transport not only of water vapor, but also of momentum and sensible heat. The magnitudes of these transport phenomena and their interactions in the lower atmosphere are constrained by the surface energy budget as a critical boundary condition.