Wind farms cause warming 1

[GregLocock]

Well, here's an unintended consequence

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac49ba

the construction of wind farms changes land surface temperature (LST) and vegetation by modifying land surface properties and disturbing land–atmosphere interactions. In this study, we used moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer satellite data to quantify the impacts on local climate and vegetation of 319 wind farms in the United States.

Our results indicated insignificant impacts on LST during the daytime but significant warming of 0.10 °C of annual mean nighttime LST averaged over all wind farms, and 0.36 °C for those 61% wind farms with warming. The nighttime LST impacts exhibited seasonal variations, with stronger warming in winter and autumn, up to 0.18 °C, but weaker effects in summer and spring. We observed a decrease in peak normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) for 59% of wind farms due to infrastructure construction, with an average reduction of 0.0067 compared to non-wind farm areas.



Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

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[TugboatEng]

NASA states this 12 years ago.

https://climate.nasa.gov/news/728/texas-wind-farm-affects-land-temperature/

I have also heard that wind turbines cause warming at higher elevations because the radial flow creates by the blades can sling warm surface air to very high elevations. I'll try to find sources, it was an older article but it seems a lot our sources are being suppressed.

(Does anybody remember when UC Berkeley digitized their entire out of print library for free public access?)

 

[rb1957]

"wind turbines cause warming at higher elevations because the radial flow creates by the blades can sling warm surface air to very high elevations" ... you've got to be kidding ? (or rather whoever is making this claim). The radial velocity imparted by a slow moving wind turbine would be like a "sparrow's fart" to the atmosphere !

"Hoffen wir mal, dass alles gut geht !"
General Paulus, Nov 1942, outside Stalingrad after the launch of Operation Uranus.

 

[TugboatEng]

Do sparrows fart at 200 mph (tip speed on a large wind turbine)? Maybe an African swallow but certainly not a sparrow.

 

[rb1957]

the tip speed of the blade .NE. the speed imparted to the airflow.

If this were true then airspace above wind farms would be a "no fly" zone.
I'm sure that a plane flying at 10,000' (1,000' ?) above a wind farm doesn't notice anything special.

A bigger imp[act from a wind turbine would be the reduction in windspeed through the prop disc, as energy is extracted from the wind. And this is, I suspect, small.

"Hoffen wir mal, dass alles gut geht !"
General Paulus, Nov 1942, outside Stalingrad after the launch of Operation Uranus.

 

[CWB1]

In a college renewables design course 15 years ago we measured the warming effect of local wind parks via Doppler weather radar. Weather events tended to mask the issue, but on a clear day you could tweak the resolution and clearly see a warm bubble surrounding parks and leaning downwind. IIRC in one of the MIT Press' texts they attributed the effect to a decrease in air velocity and turbulent flow through the park.

 

[rb1957]

200 mph (tip speed) ... really ?

A large wind turbine near me would have a blade passing period (as you stood underneath) of something like 2 seconds (maybe 3) ... three blades so a turn takes 6 seconds or 10Hz. Blade length 30m, 100'. So tip speed 2pi*100/6 = 100 ft/sec ... 30mph = 44 fps, so 100fps is like 70 mph (maybe 50 mph)

"Hoffen wir mal, dass alles gut geht !"
General Paulus, Nov 1942, outside Stalingrad after the launch of Operation Uranus.

 

[Kwan]

Is that a laden swallow? It makes a difference!

 

[dik]

Only one BPS for the Python reference...

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[BridgeSmith]

In 2022, the average rotor diameter of newly-installed wind turbines was over 130 meters (~430 feet)

2022 average blade length = 215' ---> circumference at blade tip = 1350'.

Wind turbines rotate at a rate of 10 to 20 times per minute, depending on wind speed.

At 20 rpm, tip velocity = 450 fps = 306 mph