Slowdown of Dune Migration in East Asia's Inland Deserts: A 35‐Year Response to Wind Stilling

Abstract Global terrestrial stilling, the recent decrease in near‐surface wind speeds, has significant environmental impacts, including reduced dust storms and vegetation recovery in East Asia's drylands. However, direct evidence of stilling effects on sand dunes is limited due to the lack of long‐term observational data. This study bridges the gap by analyzing dune movement in East Asia from 1986 to 2021 using satellite images, revealing a significant slowdown in migration rates and sand flux across seven sites, consistent with the recent wind stilling trend. Sand flux estimates from aeolian transport models aligned with remote sensing results but were generally lower, probably attributed to infrequent wind observations and insufficient consideration of topographic effects on sand transportation. Despite these discrepancies, a cubic relationship between sand flux and wind speed was observed, validating classic sand transport laws at the larger dune‐field scale and providing valuable insights for calculating dune dynamics under different climate scenarios.