The Evolution of Etesians: Trends in 20th Century and Future Projections

The etesians are northern sector winds of the lower atmosphere and of the most persistent regional wind systems. They prevail over the Aegean Sea during summer and early autumn, contributing to decreasing surface temperature during summer and to regulating the concentration of the pollutants to the SE Mediterranean. This study investigates past and future (21st century) trends of etesian days and wind speed distributions in global and regional simulations undertaken within the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) and Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX). Historical simulations are compared to reanalysis datasets. Our analysis is focused on changes in month August. The findings suggest the presence of a future inter-model variability for etesians days and wind speed distribution for models used here.