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Atmospheric science

Winds of change

Nature Geoscience volume 3, pages 747–748 (2010)Cite this article

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On average, terrestrial near-surface winds have slowed down in recent decades. This change will affect both wind energy and hydrology.

Watching a windmill or the modern equivalent, a wind turbine, quickly reveals just how fickle wind can be. One day the wind is blowing hard, the next it is still. One might assume that these short-term fluctuations even out, leaving a steady, long-term average wind speed at a given location. However, the available data do not show that. Instead, mid-latitude observations from Australia, China and the United States show declines in surface wind speeds of about 15% over the past 30 years, and the term 'stilling' was evoked to explain this trend1. Writing in Nature Geoscience, Vautard et al.2 show that an upward trend in land-surface roughness is at least partially responsible for the recent slow-down in near-surface wind speeds.

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Figure 1: Wind turbines located on land and at sea.

© ISTOCKPHOTO / THUMB; © ISTOCKPHOTO / TEBNAD

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tim R. McVicar is in the Land and Water Division, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Clunies Ross Drive, Acton, ACT 2602, Australia.,

    Tim R. McVicar

  2. Michael L. Roderick is in the Research School of Earth Sciences and the Research School of Biology, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia. tim.mcvicar@csiro.au; michael.roderick@anu.edu.au,

    Michael L. Roderick

  3. michael.roderick@anu.edu.au,

    Michael L. Roderick

Authors
  1. Tim R. McVicar
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  2. Michael L. Roderick
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McVicar, T., Roderick, M. Winds of change. Nature Geosci 3, 747–748 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1002

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