Surprising contributor to global warming: wind farms

[Locutus]

Wind Farms Warming Texas

Turbines mix air at night and could affect local climate and farming.

New research finds that wind farms actually warm up the surface of the land underneath them during the night, a phenomena that could put a damper on efforts to expand wind energy as a green energy solution.

Researchers used satellite data from 2003 to 2011 to examine surface temperatures across as wide swath of west Texas, which has built four of the world's largest wind farms. The data showed a direct correlation between night-time temperatures increases of 0.72 degrees C (1.3 degrees F) and the placement of the farms.

"Given the present installed capacity and the projected growth in installation of wind farms across the world, I feel that wind farms, if spatially large enough, might have noticeable impacts on local to regional meteorology," Liming Zhou, associate professor at the State University of New York, Albany and author of the paper published April 29 in Nature Climate Change said in an e-mail to Discovery News.


more


Wind Farms Warming Texas : Discovery News

 

[mentalfloss]

Zhou cautioned that his study used satellite data, which can have errors from clouds, for example, rather than temperature readings taken at the surface. He said he hopes to improve his dataset, and look at wind farms in other parts of the world.
...

But the researchers said more studies were needed, at different locations and for longer periods, before any firm conclusions could be drawn.
...

Commenting on the study, Steven Sherwood, co-director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales in Australia, said: "Daytime temperatures do not appear to be affected. This makes sense, since at night the ground becomes much cooler than the air just a few hundred meters above the surface. The wind farms generate gentle turbulence near the ground that causes these to mix together, thus the ground doesn't get quite as cool."

Wind farms may have warming effect: research | Reuters

 

[Liberalman]

Hot air in Texas?

 

[petros]

Quote:

Zhou cautioned that his study used satellite data, which can have errors
from clouds, for example, rather than temperature readings taken at the
surface.
​

I'll keep that in mind,,,,,