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🏔️ Katabatic Wind Flow: Cold Air Drainage Off Ice and Mountains

See how cold, dense air pools and accelerates downslope off ice sheets and mountains to form katabatic winds, and how slope angle, cooling rate, and terrain funneling set their velocity.

Climate, Ecology & Environment3DModerate60 FPS💨 Air & Wind 🌍 Earth ❄️ Ice & Cold

The simulation demonstrates how radiative surface cooling generates a dense air layer that accelerates downslope under gravity, showing how slope angle, cooling rate, and terrain funneling together determine katabatic wind speed.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

🎮 How to Use

Adjust the slope angle, surface cooling rate, and terrain funneling sliders to see how the cold air layer builds up and accelerates downhill, and observe how funneling through narrowing terrain concentrates the flow.

💡 Did You Know?

Katabatic winds at Antarctica's Adélie Coast, first documented by explorer Douglas Mawson's expedition, have been recorded sustaining speeds over 150 kilometers per hour for days at a time, making it one of the windiest places on the planet.

⚙ Under the hood

See how cold, dense air pools and accelerates downslope off ice sheets and mountains to form katabatic winds, and how slope angle, cooling rate, and terrain funneling set their velocity.

katabatic winddrainage flowgravity windice sheet meteorologydownslope windradiative coolingterrain funnelingboundary layer

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install