Abstract: The analysis of temporal and spatial evolution characteristics of wind speed is one of the main aspects of climate change research. It is of great significance in the assessment of climate anomalies and the prediction and forecast of wind damage.Taking Liaoning Province as the study area, the daily meteorological data collected by 23 meteorological stations in the province from 1960 to 2014 were analyzed using linear regression and Mann-Kendall methods to reveal the temporal pattern of wind speed. Based on the inverse distance weight interpolation and surface analysis module in ArcGIS software,the spatial analysis of wind speed change in the study area was carried out.The correlation between wind speed and air temperature and air pressure was investigated by means of Pearson correlation test. The results showed that:(1) From time perspective,the average wind speed in Liaoning Province has been declined significantly since 1960.Within a year,the trend appeared as "double-peaked" with an average decreasing rate of 0.559 m·s^-1·(10a)^-1 and the interannual decline rate is 0.22 m·s^-1·(10a)^-1.The four seasons in a year was listed in the sequence as follows based on descending order of the decreasing rate value:spring, winter,autumn and summer; (2) With regard to spatial pattern,the spatial distribution had the characteristics with the central part of the province having the highest decreasing rate and both the west side and east side the lower value.They all had a small seasonal difference; (3) The decrease of wind speed in Liaoning Province is related to the change of temperature and air pressure.There is a negative correlation between wind speed and air temperature with the correlation coefficient being -0.588 at the 0.01 significance level and a positive correlation between wind speed and air pressure with the correlation coefficient being 0.723 at the same significance level.

Key words: mean wind speed, interannual, four seasons, temporal and spatial distribution, correlation