Climatological wind shear analyses relevant to the design and operation of multimegawatt wind turbines are provided. Insight is provided for relating the wind experienced by a rotating blade in a shear flow to the analysis results. A simple analysis of the wind experienced by a rotating blade for three types of wind shear profiles under steady-state conditions is presented in graphical form. Comparisons of the magnitude and frequency of the variations in 1) the wind sensed by a single blade element, 2) the sum, and 3) the difference of the winds sensed by opposite blade elements show strong sensitivity to profile shape. These three items represent forcing functions that can be related to 1) flatwise bending moment, 2) torque on the shaft, and 3) teeter angle. A computer model was constructed to simulate rotational sampling of 10-s sampled winds from a tall tower for three different types of large wind turbines. Time series produced by the model indicated that the forcing functions on a rotating blade vary according to the shear profile encountered during each revolution as opposed to a profile derived from average wind conditions, e.g., hourly average winds. An analysis scheme was developed to establish a climatology ofmore » wind shear profiles derived from 10-s sampled winds and hourly average winds measured over a one-year period at several levels on a tall tower. Because of the sensitivity of the forcing function variability to profile shape, the analyses performed and presented are in the form of joint frequency distributions of velocity differences of the the top-to-hub versus the hub-to-bottom portion of disks of rotation for the three turbine configurations.« less