A climatology of Brazilian surface wind speed trends using in-situ and climate reanalysis datasets from 1980–2014

Abstract:

Wind speed trends have been extensively researched for the Northern Hemisphere and Australia. The general consensus among scientists is that wind speeds have declined over the past century. However, a minimal amount of research has focused on understanding how wind speeds changed across Brazil based on temporal and geographical perspectives. Therefore, this study provides a climatological assessment of wind speed trends across Brazil using in-situ and climatic model datasets from 1980–2014. Seasonal and annual trends are determined across the study area using linear and quantile regression. Geographical Information Systems is used to interpret and understand how wind speed trends have changed across Brazil. Preliminary results show two distinct wind speed trend patterns exist across Brazil. The largest wind speed magnitude increases occurred along northeastern and coastal Brazil, where as decreasing wind speeds have been observed for central and southeastern Brazil. Furthermore, quantile regression also shows the largest seasonal and annual wind trend fluctuations occur at lower (5%) and upper percentiles (95%) for both in-situ and climate model datasets. As a result, these findings indicate possible alterations in atmospheric and oceanic circulations could be affecting wind speed trends across Brazil and warrants further investigation and research.