New Zealand Local Weather Forum
Climate and Science => Climatology and Environment => Topic started by: JennyLeez on May 04, 2012, 12:16:06 AM
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Large wind farms might have a warming effect on the local climate, research in the United States showed on Sunday, casting a shadow over the long-term sustainability of wind power.
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In a move to cut such emissions, many nations are moving towards cleaner energy sources such as wind power.
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Researchers at the State University of New York at Albany analysed the satellite data of areas around large wind farms in Texas, where four of the world's largest farms are located, over the period 2003 to 2011.
The results, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, showed a warming trend of up to 0.72 degrees Celsius per decade in areas over the farms, compared with nearby regions without the farms.
"We attribute this warming primarily to wind farms," the study said.
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"We need to better understand the system with observations and better describe and model the complex processes involved to predict how wind farms may affect future weather and climate."
Read the full story at Reuter (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/29/us-wind-farms-climate-idUSBRE83S0BG20120429)
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I guess if the wind turbines are "rubbing" in the wind and they won't have 100% efficiency, then that lost efficiency through the rubbing will equate to heating of the air. Especially when you consider there are 1 - 7MW units out there... they probably only have something like 25-30% efficiency!
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those big MW turbines have cooling fans at the bottom to cool the oil , circulated from the caricell at the top
that will give off some heat I guess
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“This warming effect is most likely caused by the turbulence in turbine wakes acting like fans to pull down warmer near-surface air from higher altitudes at night,” said Somnath Baidya Roy of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a co-author of the paper.
While the warming effect reported is local and small compared to the strong background year-to-year land surface temperature variation, the authors believe that this work draws attention to an important scientific issue that requires further investigation.
“The estimated warming trends only apply to the study region and to the study period, and thus should not be interpolated into other regions, globally or over longer periods,” Zhou said. “For a given wind farm, once there are no new wind turbines added, the warming effect may reach a stable level.”
The study represents a first step in exploring the potential of using satellite data to quantify the possible effects of the development of big wind farms on weather and climate, said Chris Thorncroft of SUNY-Albany, a co-author of the paper.
“We’re expanding this approach to other wind farms,” said Thorncroft, “and building models to understand the physical processes and mechanisms driving the interactions of wind turbines and the atmosphere boundary layer near the surface.”
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Other authors of the paper include Lance Bosart at SUNY-Albany, Yuhong Tian of NOAA, and Yuanlong Hu at Terra-Gen Power LLC in San Diego, Calif.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-04/nsf-sfn043012.php
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I did think that would be the other cause, turbulance pulling down warmer air
but then it was not clear at what altitude the temperatures were taken, or where, relative to the turbines
if at the turbine level, it would not have been so much a difference
maybe good place for an orchard that needs to be frost free :P