NOTE: An update has been added below, using the press release that came out today after the news stories yesterday.
While ironic that something designed to reduce CO2 emissions (and presumably warming)is actually producing warming around it, this isn’t really any big surprise. Orchardists and vineyard operators in California have been using motor driven wind turbines to elevate local temperatures to save crops from frost for over half a century. What is different here is the scale of nighttime warming, large enough to be visible on MODIS satellite imagery thanks to large scale wind farms.
Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. and associates have been doing research along these lines for quite some time, and has this summary on some recent research.
From Louise Gray in the Telegraph:
Wind farms can cause climate change, according to new research, that shows for the first time the new technology is already pushing up temperatures.
Usually at night the air closer to the ground becomes colder when the sun goes down and the earth cools. But on huge wind farms the motion of the turbines mixes the air higher in the atmosphere that is warmer, pushing up the overall temperature.
Satellite data over a large area in Texas, that is now covered by four of the world’s largest wind farms, found that over a decade the local temperature went up by almost 1C as more turbines are built. This could have long term effects on wildlife living in the immediate areas of larger wind farms. It could also affect regional weather patterns as warmer areas affect the formation of cloud and even wind speeds.
Full story here:
Here’s the paper:
Zhou, Liming, Yuhong Tian, Somnath Baidya Roy, Chris Thorncroft, Lance F. Bosart and Yuanlong Hu 2012: Impacts of wind farms on land surface temperature. Nature Climate Chnage. doi:10.1038/nclimate1505
And the abstract (bold mine):
The wind industry in the United States has experienced a remarkably rapid expansion of capacity in recent years and this fast growth is expected to continue in the future. While converting wind’s kinetic energy into electricity, wind turbines modify surface–atmosphere exchanges and the transfer of energy, momentum, mass and moisture within the atmosphere. These changes, if spatially large enough, may have noticeable impacts on local to regional weather and climate.
Here we present observational evidence for such impacts based on analyses of satellite data for the period of 2003–2011 over a region in west-central Texas, where four of the world’s largest wind farms are located. Our results show a significant warming trend of up to 0.72 °C per decade, particularly at night-time, over wind farms relative to nearby non-wind-farm regions. We attribute this warming primarily to wind farms as its spatial pattern and magnitude couples very well with the geographic distribution of wind turbines.
h/t to WUWT reader Andrew Kissling
=====================================================
UPDATE: 4/30/12:30PM PST The press release came out this morning, including this image:
Temperature Differences near Wind Farms
This graph shows the night-time land surface temperature differences near wind farms between 2010 and 2013. Credit: Liming Zhou et al., Nature Climate Change
Here’s the PR:
Scientists find night-warming effect over large wind farms in Texas
Wind turbines interact with atmospheric boundary layer near the surface
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  IMAGE:Wind farms are numerous in parts of Texas; scientists report new results on their effects.Click here for more information. |
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Large wind farms in certain areas in the United States appear to affect local land surface temperatures, according to a paper published today in the journal Nature Climate Change.
The study, led by Liming Zhou, an atmospheric scientist at the State University of New York- (SUNY) Albany, provides insights about the possible effects of wind farms.
The results could be important for developing efficient adaptation and management strategies to ensure long-term sustainability of wind power.
“This study indicates that land surface temperatures have warmed in the vicinity of large wind farms in west-central Texas, especially at night,” says Anjuli Bamzai, program director in the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences, which funded the research.
“The observations and analyses are for a relatively short period, but raise important issues that deserve attention as we move toward an era of rapid growth in wind farms in our quest for alternate energy sources.”
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 IMAGE:This graph shows the night-time land surface temperature differences near wind farms between 2010 and 2013.Click here for more information. |
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Considerable research has linked the carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels with rising global temperatures.
Consequently, many nations are moving toward cleaner sources of renewable energy such as wind turbines. Generating wind power creates no emissions, uses no water and is likely “green.”
“We need to better understand the system with observations, and better describe and model the complex processes involved, to predict how wind farms may affect future weather and climate,” said Zhou.
There have been a growing number of studies of wind farm effects on weather and climate, primarily using numerical models due to the lack of observations over wind farms.
As numerical models are computationally intensive and have uncertainties in simulating regional and local weather and climate, said Zhou, remote sensing is likely the most efficient and effective way to study wind farm effects over larger spatial and longer temporal scales.
To understand the potential impact of wind farms on local weather and climate, Zhou’s team analyzed satellite-derived land surface temperatures from regions around large wind farms in Texas for the period 2003-2011.
The researchers found a night-time warming effect over wind farms of up to 0.72 degrees Celsius per decade over the nine-year-period in which data were collected.
Because the spatial pattern of warming mirrors the geographic distribution of wind turbines, the scientists attribute the warming primarily to wind farms.
The year-to-year land surface temperature over wind farms shows a persistent upward trend from 2003 to 2011, consistent with the increasing number of operational wind turbines with time.
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 IMAGE:Wind farms dot the horizon in Lubbock County and other Texas areas.Click here for more information. |
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“This warming effect is most likely caused by the turbulence in turbine wakes acting like fans to pull down warmer near-surface air from higher altitudes at night,” said Somnath Baidya Roy of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a co-author of the paper.
While the warming effect reported is local and small compared to the strong background year-to-year land surface temperature variation, the authors believe that this work draws attention to an important scientific issue that requires further investigation.
“The estimated warming trends only apply to the study region and to the study period, and thus should not be interpolated into other regions, globally or over longer periods,” Zhou said. “For a given wind farm, once there are no new wind turbines added, the warming effect may reach a stable level.”
The study represents a first step in exploring the potential of using satellite data to quantify the possible effects of the development of big wind farms on weather and climate, said Chris Thorncroft of SUNY-Albany, a co-author of the paper.
“We’re expanding this approach to other wind farms,” said Thorncroft, “and building models to understand the physical processes and mechanisms driving the interactions of wind turbines and the atmosphere boundary layer near the surface.”
Other authors of the paper include Lance Bosart at SUNY-Albany, Yuhong Tian of NOAA, and Yuanlong Hu at Terra-Gen Power LLC in San Diego, Calif.
The stoat is listed among the 100 “world’s worst invasive species”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoat
Connolley, AKA: the Welchman, says:
“You’re making that up. Care to prove me wrong? Then find some examples.”
Examples of tinkering:
click1
click2
click3
click4
click5
click6
An apology is in order for accusing Anthony of “making that up”.
A whole new source of grant money has been created!
I think there is way more going on here than simple mixing from above. Think about a surface model….
It’s a boundary layer connected to a (virtually, for a daily cycle) constant energy supply, a few meters below it, by soil with a highly variable, moisture dependent conductivity. Above, it is connected to the atmosphere by an insulator that has an R value highly dependent on turbulent flow at the surface.
During the day it is bombarded by short wave that it can either shed by conduction down (highly variable), conduction up (highly variable), or radiation ( temperature dependent).
The amount of turbulence in the boundary layer determines just how much incoming energy is available to radiate up or conduct down during the day. At night the turbulence determines how much stored soil energy can be extracted to replenish what is being lost by radiation.
Windfarms are changing weather, look there: http://goo.gl/7qBT5
> So I took the description from NCDC and posted it. It was then promptly deleted
If you copied text from elsewhere into wiki, I’m not surprised it was deleted. Nor am I terribly surprised by you not understanding the rules. The article itself shows no trace of what you say, though (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Climate_Reference_Network&action=history). But then again, I probably can’t see deleted entries. I’ll ask an admin.
> A few examples…
No; those are just other examples of you making stuff up. Your claim was “The fact is that with many (but not all) climate articles, there aren’t stable references from one day to the next because there is so much tinkering going on”. You’ve provided no evidence for that (the CRN page obviously isn’t an example, its been stable for years, and you’ve provided no others). So, how about you find me a single wiki climate article that is, currently, badly unstable; or has been massively tinkered with “one day to the next” recently.
> Look, we don’t like each other, and I doubt we ever will. You think I’m stupid (along with everyone else here)
No, not really. “Unthinking” would be closer.
> So let’s make it simple, let’s not waste each other’s time here anymore. You have Stoat, I have WUWT. Your comments really aren’t welcome here…
I’m not here to be liked. I’m here to help educate your people who (from the comments in this thread, I think you cannot but agree) are in need of help. so if you’re formally banning me, you need to actually say so (but then you can forget all about the “no censorship” claims).
REPLY: And there you go, making stuff up. Do you see “formally banning” (your words) anywhere? How about a citation? I suggest that your presence here is a huge waste of everyone’s time, because due to your baggage, and your particular style of condescension, you are not well received. Further, you can’t even fess up to your own posts on Stoat, much less your failings on Wikipedia where you were in fact demoted.. You write a Stoat post about how stupid we are, citing Policy Lass and now to save face it’s “unthinking”. Mr. Connolley, your actions here (and elsewhere) personify the main reason climate science is failing in its message, and therefore I suggest your time is wasted. Though if you want to continue to waste time, be my guest. However, as before, you’ll get an extra level of moderation.
Here’s the Wiki history page for “global warming” http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Global_warming&action=history
Seems pretty “day to day” revised to me:
(cur | prev) 14:52, 28 April 2012 Nigelj (talk | contribs) . . (146,643 bytes) (-8) . . (rm unnecessary quotes from ‘dangerous’ x 2, ‘La Niña year’, and ‘Keeling Curve’, the first per talk page)
(cur | prev) 05:55, 28 April 2012 William M. Connolley (talk | contribs) . . (146,651 bytes) (-959) . . (not sure this can’t-survive-35-oc matters)
(cur | prev) 01:34, 28 April 2012 Saedon (talk | contribs) . . (147,610 bytes) (+210) . . (Reverted 1 edit by NewsAndEventsGuy (talk): La Page is a published expert with a master’s in atmospheric science and as such meets blog exception criteria per WP:SPS ([[…)
(cur | prev) 00:59, 28 April 2012 NewsAndEventsGuy (talk | contribs) . . (147,400 bytes) (-210) . . (→Expected social system effects: WP:BLOG)
(cur | prev) 20:53, 26 April 2012 TheThomas (talk | contribs) . . (147,610 bytes) (-17) . . (→See also: There were two coppies of the link to Terraforming, both were spelled incorrectly.)
(cur | prev) 20:49, 26 April 2012 CaribDigita (talk | contribs) . . (147,627 bytes) (+18) . . (→See also: +Teraforming which is diliberate warming of a planet. (or altering the atmosphere in some way.))
(cur | prev) 20:49, 26 April 2012 CaribDigita (talk | contribs) . . (147,609 bytes) (+18) . . (→See also: +Teraforming which is diliberate warming of a planet. (or altering the atmosphere in some way.))
(cur | prev) 18:22, 26 April 2012 Nigelj (talk | contribs) . . (147,591 bytes) (-4) . . (remove unnecessary quotes from the word ‘dangerous’ both times. These are not used in the source, and both times the phrase is attributed to the source. http://unfccc.int/essential_background/convention/background/items/1353.php)
(cur | prev) 03:23, 26 April 2012 Narssarssuaq (talk | contribs) . . (147,595 bytes) (+265) . . (→Adaptation)
(cur | prev) 03:18, 26 April 2012 Narssarssuaq (talk | contribs) . . (147,330 bytes) (+25) . . (→Expected social system effects)
(cur | prev) 03:15, 26 April 2012 Narssarssuaq (talk | contribs) . . (147,305 bytes) (+654) . . (→Expected social system effects)
(cur | prev) 02:45, 26 April 2012 KimDabelsteinPetersen (talk | contribs) . . (146,651 bytes) (-157) . . (Reverted to revision 489118328 by Mikenorton: rv per WP:SUMMARY and WP:Manual of Style/Lead Section. using TW)
(cur | prev) 02:42, 26 April 2012 Narssarssuaq (talk | contribs) . . (146,808 bytes) (+8) . . (→Introduction)
(cur | prev) 02:34, 26 April 2012 Narssarssuaq (talk | contribs) . . (146,800 bytes) (+2) . . (→Introduction: “this works better”?)
(cur | prev) 02:13, 26 April 2012 Narssarssuaq (talk | contribs) . . (146,798 bytes) (+147)
(cur | prev) 07:06, 25 April 2012 Mikenorton (talk | contribs) . . (146,651 bytes) (-99) . . (rv – please discuss on the talk page)
(cur | prev) 03:19, 25 April 2012 Narssarssuaq (talk | contribs) . . (146,750 bytes) (+19)
(cur | prev) 03:17, 25 April 2012 Narssarssuaq (talk | contribs) . . (146,731 bytes) (+61)
(cur | prev) 03:11, 25 April 2012 Narssarssuaq (talk | contribs) . . (146,670 bytes) (+19)
(cur | prev) 05:38, 19 April 2012 Nicehumor (talk | contribs) . . (146,651 bytes) (-1,975) . . (See talk page. No reason geoengineering should get a separate section.)
(cur | prev) 19:17, 18 April 2012 Martarius (talk | contribs) . . (148,626 bytes) (0) . . (-us)
(cur | prev) 13:54, 17 April 2012 NewsAndEventsGuy (talk | contribs) . . (148,626 bytes) (+6) . . (Undid revision 487834044 by Joeytanc (talk) rv vandalism)
(cur | prev) 13:53, 17 April 2012 Joeytanc (talk | contribs) . . (148,620 bytes) (-6) . . (→Observed temperature changes)
(cur | prev) 00:59, 17 April 2012 TjBot (talk | contribs) m . . (148,626 bytes) (+30) . . (r2.7.2) (Robot: Adding ilo:Panagpúdot ti lubong)
(cur | prev) 04:23, 16 April 2012 Beyond My Ken (talk | contribs) . . (148,596 bytes) (+37)
(cur | prev) 12:08, 13 April 2012 Nicehumor (talk | contribs) . . (148,559 bytes) (+2,457) . . (A major social system effect may not be a significant natural system effect and vice versa. Since they are a little different it may be better to have separate sections.)
(cur | prev) 12:37, 11 April 2012 Rjwilmsi (talk | contribs) m . . (146,102 bytes) (-8) . . (→Observed temperature changes: Sraight quotes per MOS:PUNCT, replaced: “ → ” (4) using AWB (8060))
(cur | prev) 14:37, 9 April 2012 Rjwilmsi (talk | contribs) m . . (146,110 bytes) (+42) . . (→Particulates and soot: Journal cites:, added 2 PMIDs, added 1 PMC, using AWB (8051))
(cur | prev) 00:47, 8 April 2012 Wavelength (talk | contribs) . . (146,068 bytes) (+3) . . (→Etymology: [¶1 of 2] “it” —> “which”)
(cur | prev) 22:35, 4 April 2012 Teapeat (talk | contribs) m . . (146,065 bytes) (-7) . . (per WP:MOS, articles are about the topic, not the term for the topic)
(cur | prev) 06:05, 4 April 2012 Stephan Schulz (talk | contribs) . . (146,072 bytes) (-2,157) . . (Undid revision 485461502 by Nw68868 (talk) Sorry, but no. Original research, no reliable sources, and plain wrong. See talk if you need to discuss this.)
(cur | prev) 05:55, 4 April 2012 Nw68868 (talk | contribs) . . (148,229 bytes) (+2,157)
(cur | prev) 19:33, 3 April 2012 Nathan Johnson (talk | contribs) . . (146,072 bytes) (-10) . . (→Initial causes of temperature changes (external forcings): 1958-2009 is not in any way “long-term”. besides, it’s quantified a few words later.)
(cur | prev) 14:22, 2 April 2012 Rhlozier (talk | contribs) . . (146,082 bytes) (+11) . . (→Feedback)
(cur | prev) 13:38, 2 April 2012 Rhlozier (talk | contribs) . . (146,071 bytes) (-11) . . (→Feedback)
(cur | prev) 13:33, 2 April 2012 Rhlozier (talk | contribs) . . (146,082 bytes) (+22) . . (→Feedback)
(cur | prev) 10:24, 2 April 2012 H3llBot (talk | contribs) . . (146,060 bytes) (+324) . . (BOT: Added Wayback archive url for dead citation link, Tagged citation with {{dead link}}. Queries and error reports)
P.S.Linking to other web pages in your name – deleted. Choose Stoat for your name link, or leave it blank, you are not Grumbine.
P.P.S. For a real eye opener, see this Wikipedia page about Connolley and what they think about him and what actions have been taken
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Climate_change#Climate_change:_discretionary_sanctions
But I’m sure he’ll insist that I’ve “made it up”. – Anthony
Re: A. Watts mod reply to wmconnolley @4/30 1:07 pm
This deserves to be elevated to a root post.
One of the things I have complimented Wikipedia on is the history page. You can see who said what when. Who deleted what. But that only works when the root page continues to exist. Your description of what happened to the “Climate Reference Network” page illustrates the Achilles’ Heel of Wikipedia — delete the root page and all edit history shenanigans disappears with it. It is the tree that falls in the forest that no one hears, so it never existed.
Anthony, let Connolley keep posting. He does himself more harm than good with each post, whether he knows it or not. Likely not ( the signature of the narcissistic sociopath). Snip as you like.
Last sentence should read; snip my post as you like
“All global warming does…is burn a hole in our pockets.”
john 2012
> wmconnolley says:
>> Ric Werme says:> UHI effects are generally blamed on heat storage in bricks, concrete, and pavement being released at night…
> Not really, no. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island#Causes
Yes, really Connolley.
Ric said “are generally blamed on” which the wiki you pointed to states: “The principal reason for the nighttime warming is that buildings block surface heat from radiating into the relatively cold night sky.”
Ric got it right and you, Connolley, are nitpicking at nothing.
Uh oh.
So I ran Louise Gray’s article through the Churnalism engine now that I finally have the press release to compare it with (I spent a fair bit of time trying to find it as soon as I saw Gray’s article to no avail. Was she emailed a copy of it before the embargo time and decided to report on it regardless beforehand?).
Her article pops up straight away. However the churnalism engine detects less churn than there actually appears to be when one eyeballs the article. I found one reason why – it compares the two in 15-character chunks. There are places where she has done something even worse than a straight cut and paste – if you compare the two you can see where she has falsely attributed quotes to people, simply using text from the press release and slapping quotes around it. It’s utterly appalling journalism:
http://churnalism.com/j8cvy/
Gray is also consistently one of the worst offenders in my previous research on environmental churnalism:
http://i-squared.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/churnalism
wmconnolley says – “I’m here to help educate your people who (from the comments in this thread, I think you cannot but agree) are in need of help.”
Spoken like a true condescending Global Warmer. Yes, we should all listen to you experts on Global Warming, without question, cause you done so well thus far with your dire predictions. No doubt, Global Warming experts all have our best interests at heart, and in no way have benefited financially, career wise, or politically from jumping on the Global Warming bandwagon. Without question, Global Warming experts’ intentions are purely honorable, and they would never do anything unethical, like Hide the Decline or fraudulent, like Gleicked it.
> Darren Potter says:
No, you’ve completely misunderstood Potter. At least, you’ve misunderstood what I meant by it. UHI isn’t (wasn’t) my speciality. The point is that in the open, the ground can “see” the sky, and IR from the ground gets a clear path to leave (ignoring atmospheric path lengths for the moment, because that will only confuse). In an urban canyon, the ground can only “see” a thin strip of sky; most of the rest is building. So the IR is absorbed by the building, and then the arguement applies again. Not completely, and eventually the heat can make its way out. But it has very little to do with the heat stored in the building.
You might try asking that nice RP Sr; he knows more about this than I do. Except he doesn’t allow comments on his blog, so you can’t.
AT the front of a classroom is: “WHCY’s Wikipedia not to be used as reference.”
I asked what was “WHCY”
Will He Con Ye.
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings and commented:
wmconnolley says – “I’m here to help educate your people who (from the comments in this thread, I think you cannot but agree) are in need of help.”
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sorry, Mr Connolley….I’m not yours to educate. I choose my mentors very carefully. You need not apply.
Am I allowed to LMAO at this one. Talk about an Own Goal. Hahahah!
kim2000, Conolly is a famous EX-editor of Wikipedia, who was just TOO partisan for them.
Dear oh dear.
You know better than to breath life into this crap anthony, did you actually read the paper?
Anyone with even the slightest knowledge of meteorology would immediately acknowledge that the temperature rise is almost certainly a result of disturbing the nightime boundary layer and fumigation ground layer.
proof yet again of ignoring facts, and drawing absolutely crazy conclusions.
Maybe you should look at the laws of thermodynamics and explain to us where you think the energy comes from to create the observed temperature rise, because for a fact there is no increase in energy resulting that could do it. maybe it’s zero point energy?
So let’s see what I learned so far… the problem is that the IWTs create mixing where it wasn’t happening before and thus the temperatures at the ground will go up due to upper warmer air being brought closer to ground level. And this will cause a loss of soil moisture. Hmmm… so how about the electricity generated by the IWTs being used to run some pumps to irrigate the land. What.. you say that it will take all the electricity from the IWTs just to run the pumps? Ohhhhh…..
wmconnolley;
The point is that in the open, the ground can “see” the sky, and IR from the ground gets a clear path to leave (ignoring atmospheric path lengths for the moment, because that will only confuse). In an urban canyon, the ground can only “see” a thin strip of sky; most of the rest is building. So the IR is absorbed by the building, and then the arguement applies again.>>>
Oh my. You said it wasn’t your area of expertise, and wow, is that evident. Let me walk you through it.
Suppose you have a lot that is 1000 square meters. You build a building upon it that covers exactly half the lot. What is the surface area that can “see” the sky?
Answer: 1000 square meters. 500 square meters of ground, and 500 square meters of rooftop.
rgbatduke says:
April 30, 2012 at 9:54 am
As an amusing side note, observe that warming the nighttime surface actually causes more rapid net cooling of the Earth viewed as a system. The warmer the ground temperatures are at night, the more they radiate. The more they are re-warmed by recirculated air the more net energy they radiate away over the course of the night
A rarely remarked on related phenomena is that across England and I believe much of western Europe, from the 1950s many of the hedgerows and small copses of trees were removed to create larger fields more suited to mechanised agriculture.
This would have reduced near ground turbulence, surface warming and loss of heat through radiation. Thus warming the near ground atmosphere. And as this happened progressively over several decades, it would have introduce a warming trend. Hedgerow removal had largely stopped by the 1990s.
I like Billy Connolley’s [AKA: the Welshman’s] notation @2:30 pm above:
“17) . . (→See also: There were two coppies [sic] of the link to Terraforming, both were spelled incorrectly.)”
heh
wmconnolley says – “I’m here to help educate your people who (from the comments in this thread, I think you cannot but agree) are in need of help.”
Thanks…I always wanted a BIG BROTHER to help edjumicate me.
wmc: “Don’t try to teach your grandmother to suck eggs, you wet-behind-the-ears puppy.”
Anthony, Wikipedia, as loose some of it’s information is, will not even have William M. Connolley spewing his bad science information laced with insults…. so why is he here? For enlightenment to see how bad AGW badness can get? To have yourself and a multiple of readers and commenters, now included me, insulted right and left because William M. Connolley thinks he is knowledgeable in science and no one else here is? Seems you’ve got a hard decision to make.
William M. Connolley, I gave you your chance in my last comment to be civil and you refused it, insulting again. I’m not going to sit here and play YOUR game. Mods— please play me some leeway in the near future with this jerk.