Wind Variability—An Indicator for a Mesoclimatic Change in Israel

Abstract

It is shown that the normalized diurnal and interdiurnal surface wind variabilities have a clear decreasing trend in central-southern Israel for the last three decades. This trend is found in the surface data of the independent time series of three meteorological stations in this area. It is suggested that this change indicates a mesoscale modification of climate which is induced by the agricultural development and settlement of the central to southern part of Israel in the recent decades. The decreasing trend becomes particularly strong during the 1960s and this is correlated to the enhanced irrigational effects due to the starting-up of the National Water System in 1964. It is proposed that the region may have gone through a similar but reversed mechanism to that of the desertification process (reversed desertification!?) that was largely investigated in association with the Sahel zone drought.