How much energy does wind contribute to the Earth's atmosphere?

[Kmenex]

Energy in --> Energy Out

I'm looking at an idea exploring the nature of the atmosphere and weather patterns.

The number of variables is truly staggering.

In want to know if anyone here knows how energetic the atmosphere is in terms of wind.

It seems that wind is essentially the process of moving high and low pressures. What i am looking for is some type of quantity that averages out the amount of energy in all of the wind on Earth in a single day. So i guess you would take the amount of work done via the movement of the gases and constituents and then relate that to the "potential energy" of a day in terms of wind force.

Any suggestions?

 

[Xnn]

Most of the winds energy is dissipated as frictional heat, not physical work.

 

[russ_watters]

Most of the winds energy is dissipated as frictional heat, not physical work.

I'll take that a step further: most of the wind energy that does physical work is still dissipated as frictional heat!

 

[Bystander]

... or, you can look for a "mean wind speed" for the atmosphere as a whole, square it, and multiply by half the mass.

 

[Kmenex]

Isn't there work done in the creation of heat via friction?

EDIT: i guess that's what russ is saying...

 

[onomatomanic]

If you're after an order-of-magnitude estimate, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_cyclone#Mechanics" might do as a basis:

[A] tropical cyclone releases heat energy at the rate of 50 to 200 exajoules (10¹⁸ J) per day, equivalent to about 1 PW (10¹⁵ watt).

Just needs scaling from one storm to the atmosphere as a whole, but the other necessary stats shouldn't be hard to find.