Recent changes of the wind regime characteristics at stations of the Okhotsk Sea coast

Abstract

Wind regime at the Okhotsk Sea coast is considered on the base of anemometer data obtained by the Hydrometeorological Centre of Russia since early 1970s (vanes were used for the wind rate measurements before). Climatic-scale trends in wind direction and wind rate are revealed for the 43 years period. The wind rate has a tendency to decreasing in all seasons, in spite of seasonal change of the dominant direction, with the regime shift in the late 1980s. However, the main patterns of the atmospheric circulation over the Okhotsk Sea have changed slightly, so the direction of the prevailing winds is rather stable: weakening of the zonal wind component in winter was observed for several stations in the late 1990s - early 2000s only and insignificant weakening of the meridional (south) wind component occurred in summer.