I should have mentioned too that you have click on the "earth" title on the bottom left to interact with the configuration where resides all the fun. Not that easy to notice at first sight.
I know it is not new but it is the first time I stumble upon this so I wanted to share this awesome work.
This is also a cool demonstration of the Poincare-Hopf theorem (the "hairy ball theorem", more colloquially), which states that the sum of the indices of a vector field equals the Euler characteristic of the surface the field is defined on. In this case, with a sphere, that Euler characteristic is 2 (it's the same as for a cube, where you can use Euler's formula V - E + F), which means the sum of indices is nonvacuous, i.e., there is at least one zero point of the vector field.
The wind appears to be significantly stronger over open water. Is this just an artefact of the visualisation, or is it a genuine meteorological phenomenon?
I understand the temperature differences between sea and land will make it windier around coastal areas, but I had always thought that was a localised effect.
You can play around with the altitude the visualisation is showing winds for. I'm assuming a lot of wind is slowed down by topographical features at lower altitudes. At 9000m and above there seems to be little difference between land and sea in the visualisation.
