Abstract
The Carpathian basin is facing significant threats to its unique biogeography and the sustainability of its human society due to climate change. While studies have extensively analyzed temperature and precipitation changes, little attention has been given to the analysis of wind regime changes despite their potential correlation with diverse climatic effects. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of long-term observational wind data at both local and regional scales of the basin. The study aims to identify trends in wind speed and direction and raises some implications for sustainability aspects such as forest health, agricultural potential, and availability of wind energy. To track the decadal trends in wind speed, two indexes were utilized: the number of calm days and the number of windy days. In addition to traditional wind roses, fine changes in wind direction distribution were visualized using heat maps. The dominance of local winds was also examined through aggregated wind roses. Our research findings reveal that contrary to predictions and reanalysis data, there has been a noteworthy rise in wind resources in the Hungarian Great Plain, accompanied by a decrease in the number of calm days. It is evident that there are variations among different geographical regions within Hungary regarding changes in wind regimes. These trends have the potential to impact current dominant climatic influences, leading to possible modifications in climate change patterns and necessitating a reassessment of main forest and agricultural species.
