back to article 'Wind power causes climate change' shown to be so much hot air

The localised weather effects of wind-farms are just that – localised weather effects rather than climate-change engines in their own right, according to new research from Europe. When studies emerged in 2012 suggesting local wind-farm-warming effects, they raised speculation that the effects might not be purely local. Two …

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  1. Charles Manning

    Death by a thousand cuts

    The findings might be correct, propellers on large ships churning water probably have a greater impact than wind turbines.

    But this raises an interesting issue.

    There have been so many little localised environmental changes that they probably stack up to something significant.

    Here in NZ we've recently had a dairy boom. Shelter belts have been removed, leading to greater wind speeds across plains. Irrigation is growing immensely leading to higher humidity. Grass is grazed harder leading to shorter grass. The use of fertilisers changes ground cover. All those mean the local micro climate (tens of thousands of square km) that has changed substantially over the last decade or two. The same has happened to agricultural land globally over the last few decades.

    Cities all over the world have grown (heat + humidity islands), so has the use of airconditioning (which belt out heat) and we now have lots more black and concrete roads and concrete and glass buildings.

    Historic measurements are meaningless. Much of the historic data is close to cities, particularly airport data (temperatures have always been needed to determine take-off weight). Take a look at a fairly typical airport like SFO. That was created in the 1920s or 30s from a cow pasture and had a grass runway for ages, then a tarred runway surrounded by grass. Now it is a few square km of concrete, glass and airconditioning. There is no way you can honestly compare historic data with anything measured today.

    All these add up so that you really can't make an apples -to- apples comparison any more. Grabbing a trend out of the ether and blaming it on CO2, or whatever your favourite scapegoat is, becomes really hard to back with any substance.

    1. Wzrd1 Silver badge

      Re: Death by a thousand cuts

      SFO was a bad example. Any California airport is, that region is semi-arid.

      PHL isn't a great example, but adapting the model works. PHL (my local airport, about a mile away from my home) was built up from swampland. That is actually worse, as a large and growing airport was taken from a watershed and wetland.

      Still, urban heat island effects and the contribution from air conditioning have been incredibly well studied for many decades. CO2 levels have been studied directly and from captured air pockets in ice that was captured tens of thousands of years ago, other air samples were captured in various other substances and all have been measured.

      Frankly, the only ones who argue against global climate change aren't climatologists, but instead are scientists who are not climatologists (the best "study" I saw was one that had anyone who had a B.S. degree called a scientist, apparently, a nurse is a climatologist, as is a mechanical engineer!) that were funded directly by think tanks that have their funding traced to petrochemical companies.

      Sorry, but I'll not trust the wolf's think tank telling me that my sheep are safe around wolves, especially when the animal husbandry scientists all tell me otherwise (as well as history).

      1. MondoMan

        Re: Urban heat island effects sadly not well-studied

        Just wanted to note that urban heat island effects have NOT been well-studied for decades, or even one decade. Proper quantification and analysis of various effects on measured land surface temperatures has been signally lacking, with much hand-waving seeming to be its replacement if you actually read the papers that mention it. This may be due to the lack of a proper, organized government bureau doing the measurement and analysis, rather than the small, underfunded research groups that are in fact the maintainers of the temp indices. Imagine if we depended on a few poorly-funded and ill-equipped volunteer scientists to determine monthly employment numbers, factory utilization and similar economic stats! Wall Street/The City would be up in arms! It's a real shame that no one is willing to set up a proper climate statistics bureau that produces accurate, high-quality numbers that everyone can have confidence in.

        1. Tom 7

          Re: Urban heat island effects sadly not well-studied

          I did see some figures for Dallas (Texas) which suggested that waste heat from air-conditioning systems caused the local temperature to rise 15C on calm days - exactly the amount a good air-conditioner can cool!

          Cant find them - but if true would be a good thing to hide behind a paywall!

      2. WatAWorld

        religious proselytization by climate change theologians.

        There are three kinds of climate change deniers.

        1. Those who deny climate ever changes. These are very rare.

        2. Those who deny mankind can change climate. These are rare.

        3. Those who deny nature can change climate. These have somehow become exceedingly common, in part due to religious proselytization by climate change theologians.

        We need to run the theologians out of climatology and restore it to being a science, a science that meets the academic standards set by physicists and chemists, the sciences climatology is a subset of.

      3. Schnoerkelman

        Re: Death by a thousand cuts

        "Frankly, the only ones who argue against global climate change aren't climatologists, but instead are scientists who are not climatologists (the best "study" I saw was one that had anyone who had a B.S. degree called a scientist, apparently, a nurse is a climatologist, as is a mechanical engineer!) that were funded directly by think tanks that have their funding traced to petrochemical companies."

        Cite? I'm particularly interested in data linking specific studies to funding by the petrochemical industry.

    2. big_D Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: Death by a thousand cuts

      Just look at what happened to the Pierson's Puppeteers...

  2. MondoMan

    Surprised by RC's statement!

    He writes:

    ...the effects are lost in the noise, or in the more cautious terminology of a scientist, the impacts of wind farms “remain much weaker than the natural climate interannual variability”.

    The global surface temperature record is famous for its squiggliness (that is, for its interannual variability). Just about all reasonable folks also agree that this record's warming over the past century is much weaker than that interannual variability; however, I don't see anyone arguing as RC presumably would that that means the last century's warming is "lost in the noise".

    1. Richard Chirgwin (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: Surprised by RC's statement!

      MondoMan,

      The phrase was merely a shorthand for the impact of wind farms being less than natural variability, (the latter I included verbatim in the report), and was not intended to convey any political or scientific commentary.

      1. Tom 13

        @ Richard Chirgwin

        None the less, his point stands. The data on which we have been harangued for the last decade by Warmists have the exact same issue as the wind data.

    2. itzman

      Re: Surprised by RC's statement!

      Exactly. 0.3C is the sort of temperature rise that gets alarmist rushing for the klaxons.

      Its about the size of the entire so called global warming to date.

      1. John G Imrie

        Re: Surprised by RC's statement!

        You are confusing local and global effects.

        The Sahara desert has a daily summer temperature range of around -5ºC to 50ºC.This means that there is sufficient energy to rise the temperature by 55ºC by the hottest part of the day. However all that energy dissipates during the afternoon, evening and night allowing the temperature to drop.

        A global rise of .3ºC means that on average there is sufficient energy in the atmosphere to heat the entire atmosphere by .3ºC. That additional energy will try to dissipate and the most likely way for that to happen is through more violent storms.

        PS it's not the temperature numbers you have to worry so much about , but the amount of energy required to raise the entire atmosphere by that temperature.

        For those of an experimental bent try this simple experiment.

        Put half a pint of water in a pan put it on your stove and see how long it takes to boil away.

        Now do the same with 30 pints of water. this ratio matches the same ratio of the Sahara to the world and the ratio of the two times will give you the ratio of energy required to heat both to the same temperature. see how much more energy is required.

  3. JCitizen
    Thumb Down

    Every meteorologist knows..

    that upper atmospheric factors are the true predictor of weather. I can't see how the public can't be getting extremely tired of these pathetic whiners! Good grief! This is as bad as complaining that gopher farts will cause earthquakes!! Just plain out and out STUPID!

    Now to temper my rant, I will admit that in a chaotic system anything can trigger change, but so many factors trigger so many changes as to be utterly insane to contemplate! These kind of public statement only do damage to serious climatology, and serve to dull the attention of folks who used to be concerned over climate, but now feel Chicken Little is guarding the hen house!

  4. h4rm0ny

    My usual comment...

    Nuclear.

    That's pretty much it. Whether or not wind turbines affect the global climate directly (and it seems unlikely to me), it ought to be a moot point - we have a far better option available regardless.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: My usual comment...

      "Nuclear"

      OK, given the cost of nuclear power it is only suitable for baseload (and arguably is too expensive for that), which means nukes should only ever provide around 22GW out of a peak demand of around 60 GW, to which you'd need to add around 5-10% of reserve margin, say 72 GW of reliable plant.

      Sensible thoughts on how to provide the remaining 40 GW of capacity are most welcome.

      1. John Robson Silver badge

        Re: My usual comment...

        And why is nuclear only suitable for baseloads?

        Is it because you only think in terms of first generation BWR? LFTRs have no problem with adjusting their production - they don't suffer from Xenon poisoning (which is why BWR reactors *are* baseload generators)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: My usual comment...@John Robson

          "Is it because you only think in terms of first generation BWR?"

          Not at all, sir. The reason that nukes are only suitable for baseload is because they have vast capital cost and largely fixed operating costs. As soon as you try and operate them as mid merit plant, the load factor collapses very quickly to around 50-65 per cent, and at that point you're going to be almost doubling the unit cost of delivered power. As Hinkley Point is only going ahead if EdF get £93/MWh (plus CPI inflation for thirty five years, regardless of wholesale cost movements), this would suggest that mid merit nukes will need around £175/MWh (cf £50/MWh for the current UK market).

          I like nuclear power, but at those prices it isn't viable. If new designs can reduce the capital costs by something like a factor of five or more, then they could be used for mid merit generation, but I've seen nothing to show that a safe, properly regulated, well engineered nuclear plant can be built for that sort of money. In indicative terms it would mean that Hinkley Point would need to be completed for around £6bn, not the £16bn being bandied about by DECC and EDF.

          1. h4rm0ny

            Re: My usual comment...@John Robson

            This is really specifically at Ledswinger. You clearly know a lot about this and I've found your comments very interesting. Let me explain the context of my original comment and see if you agree with nuclear within that context, or if it's only a disagreement with the context that causes our positions to diverge.

            At some point we will have to move from Fossil Fuels. Long before they actually run out, rising costs will force a re-adjustment of the economics of power generation. We've had a major saving grace in fracking which postpones this (and lets the USA continue living large), but it's only a postponement. In addition, there's a substantial lobby which rightly or wrongly (I'm unconvinced, but I'm also not saying that they're wrong) is extremely insistent on reducing carbon output.

            That's the context in which I make my "usual comment". It's not portraying nuclear as a magical elixier that cures all ills for sixpence. But as we transition away from fossil fuels, we should be progressing to nuclear, not wind. Solar has its place and the technology for that has been improving a lot recently, but primarily I think we need nuclear, not wind. I've seen no good argument for wind that persuades me of its merits over nuclear. In economic terms, nuclear may not have an advantage over fossil fuels. But in environmental terms it's better than wind and it is certainly more cost effective.

            If moving from fossil is a given, is nuclear not the natural successor? And if you don't agree, then what is? And if you don't agree that we will have to move from fossil fuel, how so?

            Genuine interest in your answers.

      2. Steve the Cynic

        Re: My usual comment...

        @ledswinger: *My* electricity supplier quotes 85% nuclear among the list of sources on the bills I get, which puts your numbers into a different light, I'd say.

        'Course I live in France, but never mind that. (And no, I'm not French.)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: My usual comment...

          ' which puts your numbers into a different light, I'd say.....Course I live in France, but never mind that. (And no, I'm not French.)"

          Actually it doesn't.

          Not only did EDF build sufficient reactors to entirely cover peak load, they built a fleet a third larger still. There's a small proportion actually needed to cover plant outage, a third provide baseload, and the remainder either provide discount power to the UK, Low Countries & Germany, or they are off line for non-planned outages (availability of the French nuke fleet is appalling), or operating a very low load factors. That did cost money, you just don't see it on your 'leccy bill. The bill for construction was covered by the French government so it never really appeared in power prices, but given the age of most plant and the intervening rates of inflation the original cash construction cost would now look pitifully small anyway.

          France shows that you can technically do this (which I think we all agree). But it doesn't alter the underlying economics. The only two smart things the French did (in the original programme, it's gone to pot since) were to build lots of reactors to similar designs, reducing the unit costs, and using a proven basic reactor design (Westinghouse? Can't actually recall) which meant they had less of the unknowns and R&D problems currently bedevilling Areva's EPR builds at Oykiluoto and Flamanville.

          This is now becoming a problem for France, as the partially privatised EDF has to issue public accounts (as do Areva), and the nuclear reactor fleet is ageing. If the costs of Flammanville are indicative, France can't afford to replace its nuclear reactors like for like.

  5. hammarbtyp
    Joke

    To the next issue

    Now that's solved, hopefully we can look at the next important climate change contributory factor.

    How much is climate change affected by the concentration of gay people. For example is San Francisco showing greater climate change than say Salt Lake City? Is there a measurable change in the weather when the Oscars or BAFTA's are in town?

    Although it has to be said that anecdotal evidence is showing that climate change is most often prevalent in areas most likely to contain a high concentration of climate change deniers such as the Thames Valley. Maybe God just hates climate change deniers

    1. James Hughes 1

      Re: To the next issue

      God's like that. He hates poofs.

      (Rowan Atkinson, NTNOCN)

      1. codejunky Silver badge

        Re: To the next issue

        @ James Hughes 1

        I read that as God's like that. He hates proofs.

    2. Red Bren
      Joke

      Re: To the next issue

      How much is climate change affected by the concentration of gay people.

      Are you saying that if the gays stop concentrating, global warming will increase? Someone better tell Peter Tatchell to stop tweeting!

  6. David Pollard

    It's hardly reassuring

    Given that the average temperature in the UK varies between about 5 and 15 ºC, the possibility of a 0.3 ºC shift is not negligible.

    And looking at the satellite images of atmospheric water vapour content, the possibility of a "slight northward deflection of westerly winds in Western Europe" is not entirely encouraging, especially in view of the recent weather conditions.

    http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/mimic-tpw/global/main.html

  7. Apriori

    Consistent

    So not only do these things not generate electricity, they don't change local weather.

    What do they do (apart from cost a fortune?)

    1. codejunky Silver badge

      Re: Consistent

      They are monuments to the sky god to encourage him to blow. The problem in the UK is our weather blows in general but usually because its wet and dull

      1. Anonymous Blowhard

        Re: Consistent

        I think you mean that our weather sucks.

    2. Tom 7

      Re: Consistent

      Try telling that to my next door neighbour - he bought two 30m jobbies and is coining it in at the moment. He'd be doing even better if he'd bought them at the price they are now - its seems the price of renewables hardware is very closely related to the level of subsidy available.

      I've just got some PV - the price of that has dropped along with the FIT. I'll be better off with it than with the money in the bank however even without the FIT so its a no-brainer. I am annoyed that the inverter is made of discrete components hand fixed by German engineers. It should be made of a few mass produced monolithic silicon parts and cost under 1/3rd and my system would pay for itself in 5 years and not 10. The same would go for wind - if people invested in mass production rather than creaming off the subsidies then we would be generating most domestic power on site and that's not what big business wants.

      1. Heisenberg
        FAIL

        Re: Consistent

        The problem with this, as has been seen in Germany, is that once the general public start generating their own leccy from renewable sources, all of which only produce the goods in certain conditions (sun is shining, wind is blowing etc.), you build a need to keep a certain level of generation capacity on standby to cover those lean times.

        Now, keeping a traditional power station on standby does not come cheap (it can no longer pay for itself through making profit for the owner) meaning that someone has to pick up the tab. Hmm, who do you think that will be? Under this model we can expect to welcome in a new era of the most expensive power in the world by a long chalk. Woo - F***ing -Hoo!!!

        1. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

          Re: Consistent @Heisenberg

          If true, that's a classic (positive) feedback loop: increasing prices will encourage more people to generate their own electricity whenever they can, exacerbating the problem...

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: @ Heisenberg

          "Now, keeping a traditional power station on standby does not come cheap (it can no longer pay for itself through making profit for the owner) meaning that someone has to pick up the tab. Hmm, who do you think that will be?"

          We all know who. Us.

          Those more involved with the process will also know that the mechanism to throw subsidies at fossil fuel plant is being worked up by DECC at the moment. It's call the "capacity mechanism" and is included in the "Electricity Market Reform" programme. In reality, the electricity market only needs reform because DECC's and the EU's stupid energy policy broke it.

          Who'd have thought that a "market" would involve subsidies for industrial scale wind plant, subsidies for household scale micro-generation, subsidies for heat pumps, subsidies for new nuclear plant, subsidies for biomass power generation, and soon, subsidies for fossil fuel plant? Oh, not forgetting subsidies for energy efficiency measures including those that aren't economic, and extensive subsidies for selected groups deemed unable to afford the resultant energy prices, and assorted other subsidies on offer for things like wave and tidal power, geothermal and carbon capture and storage. Meanwhile, very little money is spent on R&D for things that might alleviate the problems, such as electricity storage. There is money being thrown at "demand side management", which is likely to lead to optional time of use tariffs - in practice another incoming cross subsidy from the majority to the minority able to shift their consumption (or pretend to).

          Some round these parts believe the energy industry should be renationalised. If they weren't so thick they'd realise that almost every aspect of the energy industry is under government control. Over and above the vast flows of subsidy, DECC control national infrastructure projects, so you can't build anything without their approval. OFGEM monitor and oversee the behaviour of the energy suppliers in retail markets. Costs of generation are dictated by government's foolhardy policies on carbon floor prices and the European emission trading system, and by the impact of the Large Combustion Plant Directive and the subsequent Industrial Emissions Directive, plus other taxes like the "Climate Change Levy", and the various renewables obligations.

          Marketeers: It's called a market, what's not to like?

          Lefties: It's all micro-managed by the state, what's not to like?

          Hippies: It's a Gaia-friendly low carbon policy, what's not to like?

          Consumers: Sorry, you're f***ed.

          So you see, something for everyone.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Consistent

        "The same would go for wind - if people invested in mass production rather than creaming off the subsidies then we would be generating most domestic power on site and that's not what big business wants."

        What a charmingly naieve thought.

        Given that your renewables will be useless on cold still winter nights (peak demand scenario), who will pay for the transmission and distribution networks, and the 72 GW of power plant to keep you ticking over when your ridiculous subsidy-funded toys are delivering no output? The capital costs, maintenance & operations still need paying for.

    3. theblackhand

      Re: Consistent

      What do wind farms do?

      They provide a gravy train for the Mafia in Italy and politicians in the UK.

      And I'm not implying that the two are equivalent - horse blood staining is so hard to get rid of...

    4. PyLETS
      Stop

      @Apriori

      "So not only do these things not generate electricity"

      As I write, according to gridwatch.templar.co.uk metred wind is contributing 11.38% of UK grid electric demand (this figure does not include unmetred embedded wind used by generators to reduce metred demand), or 5.4GW .

      1. itzman

        Re: @Apriori

        yeah well no fine. It happens to be blowing a gale.

        Look again at gridwatch. In particular look at the interconnects for early December. Suddenly the imports switch to exports.

        Why? because it was cold and there was no sun and no wind, and all of Germany and Denmark's renewable energy wasn't worth a chocolate teapot, and neither was ours.

        You would have seen figures <100MW for wind then

      2. Tom 7

        Re: @Apriori

        And several turbines round here are turned off - not because of the high winds but because they cant be arsed to put in the transmission required to take the power.

        Though the high winds will turn them off soon I guess!

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: @PyLETS

        "As I write, according to gridwatch.templar.co.uk metred wind is contributing 11.38% of UK grid electric demand "

        A pity then that we've spent about £18bn on these things to generate (at the moment) around 5GW). The same money spent on state of the art CCGT would have enabled us to renew virtually the entire UK fossil fuel fleet of c40GW (including replacing the remaining coal plant), as well as securing peak demand. If spent even on three nuclear reactors, then you'd get about the same output as wind is given at the moment (5GW), but of course you get that all day every day with a nuclear plant, so over the year you'd get four times as much power from investing the same money in nuclear.

        Wind power is an economic disaster, and will continue to be one until we can efficiently store electricity. I'll wager that we won't be able to do that in the lifetime of the crappy wind turbines currently being built left right and centre.

    5. itzman
      FAIL

      Re: Consistent

      KiIl birds and bats?

      Destroy profitably of competing generation which is not allowed to compete on level terms with their more expensive output?

      Add extra grid instability?

      Stymie investment in any energy source due to regulatory uncertainty? (The government giveth, and the government taketh away).

      What they don't do of course, in a mixed grid that uses fossil plant to co-operate them with, is appreciably lower carbon dioxide emissions.

    6. Lars Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: Consistent

      They will slow down the winds and the earth.

      1. Bunbury

        Re: Consistent

        Not if they also have windfarms in the Southern Hemisphere they won't because their winds will blow in the other direction. Granted, the earth might come unscrewed along the equator

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Consistent

          "As I write, according to gridwatch.templar.co.uk metred wind is contributing 11.38% of UK grid electric demand "

          As I write, according to gridwatch.templar.co.uk metered wind is contributing 6.81% and falling of UK grid electricity demand, which indicates why it is such an unpredictable technology and can't be relied on. Presumably it is now too windy and they are shutting down so other more stable technologies are being brought on line to take up the slack.

          1. esbo

            Re: Consistent

            It might help if you converted the percentage of power in to the percentage of a hurricane.

            For example x% of a hurricane or y% of the jet stream.

            Then people might realise the climatic change it is going to have.

    7. Bunbury

      Re: Consistent

      Since our prevailing wind is from the South West, presumably they will move us veeeeery sloooowly to the North East?

      They do look pretty. Though most people think they don't.

      Sadly, the designers chose not to equip each blade with bagpipes. So we can't even drown Scandinavia in a massed rendition of "Donald whar's yer Troosers?" before we collide with them

  8. WatAWorld

    an accurate model to predict weather? then tell us average temperature in the UK be in August 2014?

    "the impacts of wind farms “remain much weaker than the natural climate interannual variability”.

    Only nature can create 3 km deep glaciers that completely cover the UK, Russia and Canada, not anything man can do.

    But looking at the short term, if this guy has an accurate model to predict weather, what will the average temperature in the UK be in August 2014? Can he tell us that ± 5C ?

  9. Tom 7

    Re Woo - F***ing -Hoo!!!

    Its only expensive because of subsidies which are high to make Nuclear look like a valid option and not the HS2 of power. Its not in anyone's interest to invest in research or mass production when you can just cream off the subsidies.

    If we had a power plan for the people and not for big business you would have a second large hot water tank in your attic that would be heated up when there is spare juice available from overproduction.

    You could have 500gallons of hot water for the price of a normal tank of hot - or for free today if you had your own low cost mass produced turbine on your house. Companies could do the same. We could generate h2 cheaply and use that when wind and sun are low. We could get 85% efficiency in electricity->H2->electricity in the early 90's. Wind can produce cheap electricity and the supply and demand can be managed quite cheaply. It just takes a little imagination and a little organisation and a lack of interference from vested interests.

    The wind is free - it takes politicians and british management to make it expensive.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Re Woo - F***ing -Hoo!!!

      "The wind is free - it takes politicians and british management to make it expensive."

      You really do know nothing, don't you?

      Wind power is expensive because it is sub scale (biggest individual plant is 6MW for a deep water 200m tall turbine, average size is about 1.2MW) compared to the 1.5 GW you'd get from a proper power station. So that's over 1,200 wind turbines to replace a single power station. That's a lot of concrete and steel, a lot of assembly, a lot of control gear, a lot of maintenance. Not to mention vast amounts of copper and aluminium for the connections because wind turbines generally have to be built away from urban areas, and have very long lengths of connections between the individual turbines. So the cost of the plant is high for the capacity. Then you have the dismal load factor, which means that the output from the wind turbine is not only unreliable, but small. You'd want a CCGT achieving 75-80% load factor, wind achieves about 25%.

      DECC are doing a poor and misguided job, but it isn't their work that makes wind power expensive, it is the policy, driven purely by the physics and economics.

  10. John Tserkezis

    Nope, this is all about getting rid of them because they're unsightly.

    First they complained the noise was causing health problems. - Proved to be bunk.

    Now they complain it causes climate change. - Again proved to be bunk.

    What next? The turbulance caused by the blades is making their beans to grow slower?

    1. druck Silver badge

      Re: Nope, this is all about getting rid of them because they're unsightly.

      Nothing has been proved, all someone did was develop a model which gave them the answer they wanted - pretty much like the rest of the climate change research. It doesn't look like anyone has actually measured the affects on an area before and after a windfarm was built.

  11. esbo
    Alert

    We aleady use 7 hurricens of wind a year!!!

    (well we would if they wind farms ran at capacity, which they don't but we probably use a hurricane or two, that is bound to affect climate, it's a no brainer!!)

    Wind is the earth's convection cooling system, every gigawatt of power you get from the wind is a gigawatt of cooling power removed from it.

    That is of course if the system is 100% efficient which it will not be, you are probably going to remove 2 units of cooling power for every unit of power you generate.

    But leave that aside a moment and consider this, the currently installed wind farms over a year running at capacity will from 7 Hurricanes of wind from the the atmosphere. That is 7 hurricanes of cooling power!! We only get 9 hurricanes a year to put that into perspective.

    So no surprise the jet stream has gone loopy in my opinion, and of course meddling with a cooling system is a stupid thing to do, especially one driven by convection, a fragile process, a change in one place will have knock on effects affecting the whole system.

    I would also draw attention to some statements which surprise me:-

    "A significant increase in temperatures was observed, especially at night, near these farms. It turns out that at night, wind turbines mix the atmosphere more than they do during the day, which reduces cooling near the ground."

    I don't have much confidence with the approach they are using, it seem to me they are starting in the one place. If the turbines reduce the wind-speed from X to Y of a volume of air A them that volume of air is prevented from rising. So A(x-y) cubic metres of warm air has been prevented form rising, that has got to produce a warming effect!! Air can't rise unless air move in beneath it!!

    This 'mixing' idea is a bit of a red herring I fear, it's not the "big issue", however even them a "significant increase in temperatures was observed", it does not matter if it was mainly at night, they don't switch them off at night do they!!!

    Also you can't dismiss it as 'mixing' that warm air still has to rise again and wind is required to allow it to rise, otherwise it is stuck.

    Also this:-

    "The main conclusion is that differences caused by wind turbines remain very small compared to natural climate variability: in some regions, the difference in temperature reaches 0.3°C at the most"

    0.3C? Small? Well the warming over the last 100 years has been only about 0.8C so we can ignore that as well!! And this figure was from a simulation apparently.I really have no faith in them being able to produce an accurate simulation, garbage in, garbage out.

    Also there is nothing local about heat or wind, you might only notice it locally but affects the weather thousand of miles away if only slightly.

    Meddling with the wind is bad, slowing down climatic system can have devastating effects, causing flooding and droughts in general any persistent weather pattern is bad news and we seem to have that at the moment. It is worse than warming in it's destructive power in my opinion much worse.

    And we are steam rolling ahead into the unknown blindly.

    Were in charge I would chop all wind turbines down until we know what we are doing.

    As I said earlier, you can't expect to take a few hurricanes of wind out of the weather system and not notice.

    I read this " "between 72 and 170 TW could be extracted in a practical and cost-competitive manner".[30] They later estimated 80 TW.[31] However research at Harvard University estimates 1 Watt/m2 on average and 2–10 MW/km2 capacity for large scale wind farms, suggesting that these estimates of total global wind resources are too high by a factor of about 4."

    Well we currently extract 0.3TW, so if we plan to extract say a conservative 30TW, may I remind you that that is 700 HURRICANES over the year!!!

    WE WILL ALL DIE IF THEY DO!!

    We will suffocate in stagnate air, assumed we have not all starved from crop failure first!!!

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