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Wind regime is one of the main natural factors controlling the evolution and distribution of aeolian sand landforms, and sand drift potential (DP) is usually used to study the capacity of aeolian sand transport. The Badain Jaran Desert (BJD) is located where polar cold air frequently enters China. Based on wind data of eight nearby meteorological stations, this research is intended to explore the temporal variation and spatial distribution features of wind speed and DP using linear regression and cumulative anomaly method, and reveal the relationship between atmospheric circulation and wind speed with correlation analysis. We found that the wind speed and frequency of sand-blowing wind in the BJD decreased significantly during 1971–2016, and the wind speed obviously mutated in 1987. The regional wind speed change was affected by the Asian polar vortex, the northern hemisphere polar vortex and the Tibet Plateau circulation. The wind rose of the annual sand-blowing wind in this region was the "acute bimodal" type. Most of the annual wind directions clustered into the W-NW, and the prevailing wind direction was WNW. During 1971–2016, the annual DP, the resultant drift potential (RDP) and the directional variability (PDP/DP) in the desert showed an obvious downtrend, with a "cliff-like" decline in the 1980s and relative stable fluctuation thereafter. The BJD was under a low-energy wind environment with the acute bimodal wind regime. Wind speed, sand-blowing wind frequency and DP were high in the northeast and low in the southwest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]