Recent decline in wind energy potential in South Asia and its projected recovery

Near-surface summer winds have significantly weakened in South Asia, most prominently over the wind energy potential regions of India, parts of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the adjacent maritime continent over the last four decades (1980-2020). The most populated country in the region, India alone, has suffered a severe weakening of its wind energy resources by ~25%, resulting in a substantial depletion of wind power. Large ensemble climate simulations suggest this weakening is driven, in large part, by anthropogenic reasons. It further unravels that the weakened winds are primarily due to a cooling of the Indian land and a warming of the Arabian Peninsula owing to aerosol loading, with secondary contributions from changes in land-use and land-cover effects. These thermal changes have led to a mean sea level pressure increase over India and a decrease over the Arabian Peninsula, thus weakening the mean pressure gradient and, in turn, the winds. However, in a huge relief, these trends will likely reverse in the coming decades as anthropogenic aerosol loadings decrease in southeast Asia, causing a partial recovery of winds and wind energy potential.