3/30/12: Oops. Wind Turbines Heat Earth

Greg passed this along:


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.

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. The temperature change could be due to the effects of the energy expelled by farms and the movement and turbulence generated by turbine rotors, it said.

“These changes, if spatially large enough, may have noticeable impacts on local to regional weather and climate,” the authors said.
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I happen to know the weather center at SUNY Albany. Very good group. They used to have an interesting site, so check it out.


One of the Comments to this piece was clever. The Green folks, in their various guises, are an example of people who hold the theory that living causes cancer. 


I am not really sure if that is apt, but it must be useful for something. Art is its own raison d'etre.