From: Andrew Price, GOOD
Published March 14, 2010 09:50 AM
Wind Turbines might actually add to warming
A new paper suggests that wind turbines, installed broadly, might
actually change the climate themselves just by disrupting the normal
flow of the wind:
In a paper published online Feb. 22 in Atmospheric Chemistry and
Physics, [the MIT researchers] Wang and Prinn suggest that using wind
turbines to meet 10 percent of global energy demand in 2100 could cause
temperatures to rise by one degree Celsius in the regions on land where
the wind farms are installed, including a smaller increase in areas
beyond those regions.
Their analysis indicates the opposite result for wind turbines
installed in water: a drop in temperatures by one degree Celsius over
those regions....
In the analysis, the wind turbines on land reduced wind speed,
particularly on the downwind side of the wind farms, which reduced the
strength of the turbulent motion and horizontal heat transport processes
that move heat away from the Earth’s surface. This resulted in less heat
being transported to the upper parts of the atmosphere, as well as to
other regions farther away from the wind farms. The effect is similar to
being at the beach on a windy summer day: If the wind weakened or
disappeared, it would get warmer.
I have wondered about this effect before but always assumed it would be
negligible. Apparently it isn't. For now, the researchers don't say this
is necessarily an argument against developing wind power, though—they
just want us to investigate the effect more before investing huge sums
in wind farms.
We're a long way from this being an immediate problem. And analyses like
this are extremely unreliable because there are so many unaccounted-for
factors. Who knows how the earth's surface and climate patterns will
change in the next few years? It could also be that the carbon emissions
saved by a large-scale shift to wind power more than make up for the
warming effects of turbines.
But it would still be nice to figure out a solution to this (potential)
problem. I wonder if the
kite-style turbines that can fly at high altitudes would also have
this effect.
Photo (cc)
from Flickr user
the russians are here.
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