In routine operation, orthogonal wind components are sampled every few minutes and processed to yield a consensus mean hourly wind. Four times per day, hourly averaged Christmas Island wind data are telemetered via geostationary satellite and incorporated onto the GTS for worldwide distribution. The Christmas Island wind profiler has served as a prototype for a complementary array of VHF wind profilers that was designed to span the Pacific basin from Indonesia to Peru. This Trans-Pacific Profiler Network was constructed with support from the National Science Foundation. The magnitude of the local effects generally can be expected to decrease with height and depend on the location of the profiler and the size and topography of the island.
Additional research is needed to quantify island influences on island-based profiler observations.
The 915-MHz profiler was installed at Christmas Island in 1990. Together the two profilers observe the entire tropical troposphere. Technical aspects of the development of the 915-MHz UHF profiler are reviewed by Carter et al. Programme, World Meteorol. Organ., Geneva, 1992.