Surface wind observations affected by agricultural development over Northwest China

Abstract

Meteorological stations in Northwest China are surrounded by large proportions of cultivated land. The relations between the change of surface wind speed and the cultivated land fractions (CF) within a 4 km radius at 135 meteorological stations over arid Northwest China are investigated. Stations with larger CF experienced larger declines in surface wind speed from 1960 to 2007. Compared with the wind speed variation in the Tibetan Plateau where agricultural development is negligible, stations with low CF show similar variation, whereas the wind speed at stations with large CF illustrates a sharp decrease in the 1970s-1980s, during which irrigated agriculture developed rapidly. The observed wind speed at the station surrounded by irrigated fields in the Jingtai Irrigation District, shows a rapid wind speed decrease during the same period when the irrigated area expanded. By contrast, rapid wind decrease is not observed at a nearby station with minimal influence of agricultural development.