Workers check equipment at a wind power plant in Urumqi, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Sept. 18, 2018. (Xinhua/Zhao Ge)

Wind power, a rapidly growing alternative energy source, has been threatened by reductions in global average surface wind speed since the 1980s.

BEIJING, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- Chinese researchers found that the global average surface wind speed has increased since 2010, according to a recent study paper published in the journal of Nature Climate Change.

Wind power, a rapidly growing alternative energy source, has been threatened by reductions in global average surface wind speed since the 1980s.

The global average surface wind speed has the potential to seriously affect the efficiency of wind turbine power generation and threaten the global wind power industry.

The research team from the School of Environmental Science and Engineering at the Southern University of Science and Technology used wind data worldwide and found the reductions in global average surface wind speed reversed around 2010 and that global wind speeds over land have recovered.

The results showed the recent rate of increase in the global average surface wind speed was three times the rate of decline before 2010, with North America, Europe and Asia showing the most marked change.

In addition, they analyzed that the decade variations of near-surface wind were probably determined by large-scale ocean and atmospheric circulations, rather than by vegetation growth or urbanization.

If the improving global surface wind speed persists for another decade, wind power would rise 37 percent up to 3.3 million kWh by 2024, the researchers predicted. ■