Abstract: Based on the daily surface wind speed data during 1971-2010 in China, a comparative analysis of changes of mean wind speed in four subset networks with different station densities relative to the full-size national network (standard network) was conducted. The results show that China-wide mean wind speed varied in the four networks, but the absolute value of the relative difference of mean wind speed is below 10%. The spatial distribution of the wind speed in the basic baseline stations and basic stations come closest to that in the standard network. All networks can detect the downtrend of annual wind speed during 1971-2010, the basic baseline stations and basic stations witness smaller differences. In the case of spatial distribution of wind speed, the monitoring results of these networks are unsatisfactory.

Key words: station density, wind speed, climate change