Characteristics of the Wind Field in the Upper Troposphere as Indicators of Climatic Variability

Abstract—The paper presents the results of a study of spatiotemporal variability of the characteristics of the wind field in the free atmosphere of the Northern Hemisphere in the SEVIRI radiometer field of view of European geostationary meteorological satellites of the second generation Meteosat 8–Meteosat 11 in the time interval 2007–2021. It is noted that the maximum wind speeds, as well as the maximum average monthly and seasonal anomalies of the wind speed modulus, are observed over the Atlantic. A feature of the temporal variability of the area-averaged wind speed modulus is revealed, which consists in a change in the sign of the trend at the turn of 2015–2017 from positive to negative. At the same time, positive linear trends in the time intervals from 2007 to the points of a change in the sign of the trend over the Atlantic, the entire region under consideration and Eurasia, including the European territory of the Russian Federation, are significantly different from zero with a probability of more than 95% and the negative trend is significant only over the Atlantic. A high correlation was noted in the area of seasonal wind speed variations with the area of Arctic sea ice and temperature characteristics of the troposphere at levels of 500 and 200 hPa. Based on the analysis of the relationship between wind speed variability and the main climatic characteristics and large-scale atmospheric processes, a scheme is proposed for the effect of the accelerating reduction in the area of Arctic sea ice associated with global warming on wind speed in the free atmosphere.