Urbanization has stronger impacts than regional climate change on wind stilling: a lesson from South Korea

Abstract

Abstract Wind stilling has been observed in many regions across the Northern Hemisphere; however, the related mechanisms are not well understood. Analyses of the wind speed variations in South Korea during 1993–2015 in this study reveal that the annual-mean surface wind speeds at rural stations have increased by up to 0.41 m s−1 decade−1, while those at urban stations have decreased by up to −0.63 m s−1 decade−1. The local wind speed variations are found to be negatively correlated with the population density at the corresponding observation sites. Gustiness analyses show the increase in local surface roughness due to urbanization can explain the observed negative wind speed trends at urban stations as the urbanization effect overwhelms the positive wind speed trend due to climate change. The observed negative wind speed trend in urban areas are not found in the regional climate model simulations in the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment—East Asia (CORDEX-EA) as these models do not take into account the impact of urbanization on wind variations during the period. This study suggests that urbanization can play an important role in the recent wind stilling in rapidly developing regions such as South Korea. Our results suggest that future climate projections in CORDEX-EA may overestimate wind speeds in urban areas, and that future regional climate projections need to consider the effects of urbanization for a more accurate projection of wind speeds.