Investigating recent changes in the wind speed trends over Turkey

The wind has considerable effects on the ecosystem and evaporation as an essential parameter of the hydrological cycle. Therefore, determining historical changes in the wind will help to specify these effect levels. Although there are studies on the determination of wind speed trends by several researchers in Turkey, it is necessary to investigate the changes in the trend structure with recent data. For this purpose, the trends of monthly surface wind speed data from 1970 to 2021 belonging to 199 meteorology observation stations in Turkey are determined in the present study. The nonparametric Mann–Kendall test and Sen’s slope method are used in the trend analysis accounting for serial correlation effects. The trend analysis results of wind speed data are evaluated temporally and spatially for seven geographical regions within Turkey. As a result of this study, a prominent part of stations in Turkey shows a decrease or significant decrease trend. In addition, as a result of comparisons made with previous studies, it is determined that the trend structure of the wind speed in the country has changed. In the annual and monthly wind speeds, it is observed that the number of stations has a "significant trend" decreased considerably.