Extreme Wind Speed Long-Term Trends Evaluation in the Russian Arctic Based on the COSMO-CLM 36-Year Hindcast

Abstract

The high-resolution long-term hydrometeorological “COSMO-CLM Russian Arctic hindcast” based on nonhydrostatic regional atmospheric model COSMO-CLM v.5.06 for the 1980–2016 period covering the North Atlantic, Barents, and Kara and Laptev Seas with ~12 km grid size was utilized to estimate climatological trends of extreme wind speed. In this study, we used the 10 m wind speed data from 95 Russian weather stations inside the hindcast domain. Trends in mean, maximal, 0.90, 0.95, 0.99 quantiles wind speed values, and occurrences of wind speed above 20, 25, 30, and 33 m/s were calculated for all stations and corresponding nearest model grids for yearly data and data from four months of the calendar year (January, April, July, and October). Yearly mean wind speed and quantiles values were observed to increase over the northern Kara Sea, while decreases were observed over the western Barents Sea and northern Atlantic. Extreme wind speeds were observed to increase in January in the eastern Evenkia and northern Yakutia, while declining was observed over north-eastern European Russia. The 0.99 quantile values increased in July near the Gyda peninsula coastline, but decreased over polar regions, the Pechora Sea, and the White Sea coastline. Maximal wind speed declined in October over north-western European Russia, eastern Taymyr, and the Norway Sea, but grew over the Eastern Siberian Sea.

Keywords

• COSMO-CLM Russian Arctic hindcast
• Arctic climate changes
• extreme wind speed