Wind speed variability over the Canary Islands, 1948–2014: focusing on trend differences at the land–ocean interface and below–above the trade-wind inversion layer

Recent trends in wind speed across Saudi Arabia, 1978–2013: a break in the stilling

“…Recently, this finding has been noticed by Azorin‐Molina et al . (), who observed a decoupling wind speed tendency when comparing stations below and above the trade‐wind inversion layer in the Canary Islands (Spain; between 27.6° and 29.4°N, and 13.3° and 18.2°W), with a dominant positive tendency of wind speed observed in the mountainous station. Azorin‐Molina et al .…”

“…Azorin‐Molina et al . () attributed these elevation‐based differences to different altitude‐dependent atmospheric dynamics. Therefore, our results contrast McVicar et al .…”

“…levels of the troposphere), as recently suggested by Azorin‐Molina et al . (). Another interesting feature was the observation of a latitudinal dependence of the sign, magnitude and significance of wind speed trends, with a clear dominance of significant (negative) trends in the northern half part of SA, with non‐significant changes in the southern half except for the positive trends detected over the Jabal al‐Hejaz Mountains.…”

“…() highlighted that wind speed is declining more rapidly at higher elevations than lower elevations, while Azorin‐Molina et al . () found a decoupling of trends below and above the trade‐wind inversion layer in the Canary Islands. Previous studies also detected a more statistically significant atmospheric stilling over coastal stations (e.g.…”

“…Contrary to this terrestrial weakening of winds, some recent studies (Kim and Paik, 2015;Dunn et al, 2016;Azorin-Molina et al, 2017a) have reported a slight recovery of wind speed after the 2010s, particularly in central and East Asia. Moreover, the complexity of the multidecadal variability of wind speed is revealed by the increasing trends observed over global ocean surfaces (Wentz et al, 2007;Tokinaga and Xie, 2011;Young et al, 2011), or the decoupled trends of winds below and above the boundary layer (Azorin-Molina et al, 2017b), which demonstrates the existence of uncertainties behind the stilling phenomenon. Therefore, there is the need of further assessing and attributing the variability e967 of wind speed over underexplored regions in the global map of McVicar et al (2012), such as the Arabian Peninsula, because trends and associated causes likely vary spatio-temporarily across Earth.…”