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Projections of wind changes for 21st century in China by three regional climate models

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Abstract

This paper examines the capability of three regional climate models (RCMs), i.e., RegCM3 (the International Centre for Theoretical Physics Regional Climate Model), PRECIS (Providing Regional Climates for Impacts Studies) and CMM5 (the fifth-generation Pennsylvania State University-the National Center for Atmospheric Research of USA, NCAR Mesoscale Model) to simulate the near-surface-layer winds (10 m above surface) all over China in the late 20th century. Results suggest that like global climate models (GCMs), these RCMs have the certain capability of imitating the distribution of mean wind speed and fail to simulate the greatly weakening wind trends for the past 50 years in the country. However, RCMs especially RegCM3 have the better capability than that of GCMs to simulate the distribution and change feature of mean wind speed. In view of their merits, these RCMs were used to project the variability of near-surface-layer winds over China for the 21st century. The results show that 1) summer mean wind speed for 2020–2029 will be lower compared to those in 1990–1999 in most area of China; 2) annual and winter mean wind speed for 2081–2100 will be lower than those of 1971–1990 in the whole China; and 3) the changes of summer mean wind speed for 2081–2100 are uncertain. As a result, although climate models are absolutely necessary for projecting climate change to come, there are great uncertainties in projections, especially for wind speed, and these issues need to be further explored.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Climate Center of China, Beijing, 100081, China

    Ying Jiang, Yong Luo, Zongci Zhao & Ying Shi

  2. Center for Wind and Solar Energy Resources Assessment, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing, 100081, China

    Ying Jiang & Zongci Zhao

  3. Laboratory for Climate Studies, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing, 100081, China

    Ying Jiang, Yong Luo, Zongci Zhao & Ying Shi

  4. Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development in Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100081, China

    Yinlong Xu

  5. Illinois State Water Survey, Department of Natural Resources, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois, 61820, USA

    Jinhong Zhu

Authors
  1. Ying Jiang
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  2. Yong Luo
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  4. Ying Shi
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  5. Yinlong Xu
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  6. Jinhong Zhu
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Correspondence to Ying Jiang.

Additional information

Foundation item: Under the jointly auspices of the Special Public Research for Meteorological Industry (No. GYHY200806009), Wind Energy Resources Detailed Survey and Assessment Work, and EU-China Energy and Environment Program (No. Europe Aid/123310/D/Ser/CN)

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Jiang, Y., Luo, Y., Zhao, Z. et al. Projections of wind changes for 21st century in China by three regional climate models. Chin. Geogr. Sci. 20, 226–235 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11769-010-0226-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11769-010-0226-6

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