By P Gosselin on 5. July 2026
Germany’s online Report24 has an article titled: “Studies Show Gigantic Wind Farms Significantly Warm the Night”.
Proponents of the energy transition often ignore or conceal the negative local climate impacts of wind turbines. Report24 references a 2012 study published in Nature Climate Change by Liming Zhou and his research team, which investigated the impact of large wind farms on land surface temperatures in Texas.
Researchers analyzed satellite data from 2003 to 2011 covering an area in Texas that hosts four of the world’s largest wind farms. In the areas with wind farms, nighttime surface temperatures in summer increased by up to 0.65 °C more than in comparable areas without turbines. The calculated warming trend was up to 0.72 °C per decade.
Why do turbvines cause warming? At night, the ground cools down, making the air near the surface colder than the layers above. The turbine rotors disrupt this natural stratification, mixing the layers and forcing warmer air down to the surface, which warms and dries out the ground. Germany is plastered with circa 30,000 turbines spread across the country. In addition to the growing urban heat island (UHI) effect, Germany’s local climate is being disrupted by its widespeard use on wind turbines.
Politicians and mainstream media of deliberately ignoring these facts since 2012. It argues that the local warming caused by wind farms is falsely blamed on CO₂-driven climate change in order to maintain the narrative of “saving the climate.”
Also, deforestation is underway in Germany in order to clear the way for largescale windparks, severely damaging a natural ecosystem that acts to cool the local climate,
Who would have thought that huge, whirling, mechanical things would convert some of that motion into heat? Certainly not the PoliSci and Law majors that force this crap upon us.
[“Who would have thought that huge, whirling, mechanical things would convert some of that motion into heat?“]
Yeah, but that’s a tiny amount compared to the enormous amount of heat energy released into the environment in building the bloody things in the first place, on top of the environmental damage caused.
Yet the scammers get a free pass by calling these bird choppers ‘green, clean & sustainable’ & the ill-educated sheepel believe it.
Wait until they (the huge, whirling, mechanical things) wear out and require replacement. All that heat all over again.
Yes maybe but that is not what the article says. Here is the thing … if mixing air causes warming at the surface at night then it is actually causing cooling because ir leaves the surface at a higher rate
The actual effect is more complicated than this. The largest effect will be on the atmosphere above the ground – where “surface” temperature is measured, i.e. at 6′ above the surface, because it increases mixing of warm/cold air. The conductive gradient between the surface and the atmosphere will lessen so it would cause less conductive cooling. If it causes the surface to dry that indicates a loss of water vapor from the surface, i.e. evaporation. That would cool the surface.
Lots of dependence on microclimate, especially terrain and soil composition. Not a simple thing. There will be *some* kind of impact. Sounds like at least some measurements were taken to quantify it. Needs subsequent confirmation based on experiment.
Don’t you know? The surface cools by infra red and cools the air near it
“ where “surface” temperature is measured, i.e. at 6′ above the surface”
That is not where these temperatures are measured. They are radiation from surface, measured by satellite. At 0′ above the surface.
Satellites are incapable of separating surface EM from the atmosphere, so satellites do not just measure the surface.
Sorry, but Nick is correct – while the atmosphere does radiate, it is insignificant compared to the surface (soil, pavement or water). As an experiment, take your IR thermometer out for a sail on a warm day and point it at the water – it will tell you the water’s surface temperature, unaffected by the higher air temperature. The satellite is using similar technology to measure surface temperature (albeit with much higher resolution and controlled calibration!)
No.
It creates an effect similar to the thermal insulation effect of clouds.
Whatever thermal energy leaves the ground due to higher temperature enters the mixing bowl and does not go up further.
Of course it goes up further. If it didn’t the temperature would just keep rising and it wouldn’t get cold at night
No. No sunlight, no infusion of energy.
No infusion of energy results in equilibrium.
The efficiency of these windmills is only 30%, meaning 70% of wind is heated up day and night.
If nigh times are warmer, then daytimes will be warmer as well.
That means those bird killers are also adding to global warming whereever they are located.
It is not rocket science, just plain old high school physics.
And the Dumbocrat, woke, wackos keep on telling us they are saving the planet, with our hard earned money, while they themselves and their well heeled buddies in private planes, such as Kerry and Gore, are laughing all the way to the bank
Except the windmills do not impart kinetic energy on the air. The reverse, the blades warm as the air imparts kinetic energy causing the rotation as well.
Now, if you want to single out a specific molecule, it can go either way.
A below comment made the point the downstream air is cooled, because the windmill takes energy from the air, which seems to make sense, when watching the large condensation plumes downstream of offshore windmills.
As an aside:
Despite the about 1.5°C of warming “measured” since 1850, and the earth population increasing from about 1.25 billion in 1850 to 8 billion in 2025, it is better clothed, housed, fed, etc., than in 1850, thanks to the wise use of fossil fuels, which provide 80% of the primary energy of the world economy; large nuclear and large hydro provide most of the rest.
I misread your post.
Apologies.
One of the biggest advantages is wind is that you can farm under the wind turbines without a loss of crop yields.
At least that is the claim!
However I have yet to see any study , much less a credible study supporting that claim . Granted there are lots articles making that claim
It always seemed quite dubious given the change I. The micro climate
The effects on soil and ground water retention and those little beasties that live in the ground are studied and all have seen detrimental effects when those obscenities are built.
Nit-picking…look it up…
What is the point of your comment?
How does it contribute to the discussion of the article under discussion?
“Politicians and mainstream media of deliberately ignoring these facts since 2012″
As they should. The effect is not only small, but very local. Here is Zhou’s figure of warming regionally. It barely extends beyond the actual wind farm (black dots).
One could complain that he has only nine years of data, and the wind farms mostly came into existence in the last three, so it is a thin basis for calculating trends.
Only 3 years.. and already so much warming… WOW. !!!
We should feed the data in Manns hockeystick modell, then the warming by windmills will be life-threatning soon!
Europe is warmer, because many people live in a small place, with lots of industry, vehicles and heat absorbing human detritus, and lots of clear-cut areas with windmill systems and solar systems.
Bringing in unvetted folks from all over did not help at all, in fact, likely will turn Europe into a Third World Region.
The increasing cost, chaos, crime, subversion of “integrating” the continued influx of uninvited, unvetted, uneducated, unskilled, crime-prone ghetto trash from Third World countries. Those folks are sucking from the multiple, government-programs, while making insufficient efforts to efficiently produce goods and services, and often have high crime rates, and insist in their own cultures, instead of assimilating. These are outcomes the native populations never voted for. Europe’s migrant population was 40 million at end 2010, became 64.2 million at end 2025, at an A-to-Z cost of about $160 billion.
The Cost of Germany’s Foreign-Born Population: About 18 million individuals are foreign-born. Their children and grandchildren about 3.8 million, a total of 21.8 million. The federal and state cost of Germany’s migrant population was about $46.5 billion in 2025, not counting the costs of: 1) Education of their children and grandchildren about $10,000/y per person, 2) Language and job training, 3) Immigrants having high crime rates cost $10,000 – $20,000/y per person, and 4) Expansion of the economy, including government and public and private infrastructures to provide goods and services to the additional 21.8 million people.
NOTE: Because of dubious decisions by Brussel/German elites, Germany’s real GDP growth averaged about 1.2%/y from 2000 to 2025, characterized by moderate expansions followed by severe contractions, and stagnation since about 2022.
Minimal Temperature Change due to CO2: The climate is not any different, even though, atmosphere CO2 increased from 280 ppm in 1850 to 420 ppm in 2025, 50% in 175 years. During that time, world surface temps increased by at most 1.5 C +/- 0.25 C, of which:
.
1) Urban heat islands account for about 65% (0.65 x 1.5 = 0.975 C) of the warming, such as the UHI of about 700 miles, from north of Portland, Maine, to south of Norfolk, Virginia, forested in 1850, now covered with heat-absorbing human detritus, plus the waste heat of fuel burning.
Japan, China, India, Europe, etc., have similar heat islands
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/05/16/live-at-1-p-m-eastern-shock-climate-report-urban-heat-islands-responsible-for-65-of-global-warming/
2) CO2 accounts for less than 0.3 C, with the rest from
3) Long-term, inter-acting cycles, such as coming out of the Little Ice Age,
4) Earth surface volcanic activity, and other changes, such as from increased agriculture, deforestation, especially in the Tropics, etc.
.
BTW, the 1850 surface temp measurements were only in a few locations and mostly inaccurate, +/- 0.5 C.
The 1979-to-present temp measurements (46 years) cover most of the earth surface and are more accurate, +/- 0.25 C, due to NASA satellites.
Any graphs should show accuracy bands.
The wiggles in below image are due to plants rotting late in the year, emitting CO2, plants growing early in the year, consuming CO2, mostly in the Northern Hemisphere. See URL
https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/about.html
.
According to John Clauser, 2022 Nobel Physics Price recipient, “Atmospheric CO2 and methane have less than 0.25 to 0.75 C effect on atmosphere temperatures. The policies government have been implementing are totally unnecessary and should be eliminated. The dominant process is “the cloud-sunlight-reflexivity thermostat” mechanism. Clouds are bright white, reflect 90% of the sunlight back into space, are the most crucial aspect of the climate system. Oceans are 70% of the Earth surface. The Pacific Ocean alone is 30%. The average cloud cover for the Earth is 67%; about 55% over land and 72 – 75% over oceans.”
https://willempost.substack.com/p/the-climate-cult
Did you read the paper?
Yes. Did you? Tell us more…
From this graph this “local area” is app 3000 squaremiles. The windmill area is app. half of it, so app 1500 squaremiles. This can quite substantially change the local flora and fauna and is in size and effect way more than the release of cooling water into a river from a thermal power plant, were eco-zealots problematize every added °C (or °F).
You have to remember, leftist “environmentalists” don’t give a stuff about how much wind turbines and solar industrial estates actually damage the environment.
The brightest red here is about 1C, and tht is only at night. It is a very small effect.
but 1c warmer nights is the stuff of warmists nightmares and we should all panic n gnash teeth surely?
But what if you take your teeth out at night? You won’t be able to gnash them, & panic levels will fall.
So, if everyone had dentures & removed them at night, it could end climate anxiety !! (:-))
Are you joking or just not thinking about what you are saying?
You and other warmists crow about how bad an increase of 1°C is for the world. That 1°C at night applied to a Tavg is significant in its effect.
I have not read the Zhou paper because it is paywalled. However, I wonder how many weather stations overlayed on the map you posted would show up.
You are concerned about ~ 1.5 C rise over ~ 170 years.
A plus 1 C change at night affects the 24 hour average (bogus calculation, but it is what is used) by plus 0.5 C.
Multiply that by the 10’s of millions of windmills that your co-religionists want to build.
Adding to your observation is the need to consider the aerodynamics at play.
WTGs have downstream effects that will likely affect a larger area.
Nick,
This is a disappointing comment.
You state your interpretation as a factual conclusion.
Might it not have been more of a contribution to state it as a question?
Nick,
See my above comment
The image shows the hot spots, but not the wind direction.
The bird kill is near the hot spots.
THAT WARM AIR MOVES MANY MILES TO WARM OTHER AIR.
Try to be a Mensch, not an Ostrich
The turbines do not create warm air. They counter the stratification at night by mixing, so the surface does not becom so much cooler than above.
I haven’t read the paper, but I find it hard to believe there is any stratification happening or expected when there is enough wind to turn the turbines. And if there isn’t, then what difference would the stationary turbines make beyond say trees or any other feature of the landscape.
I found that odd too. But I don’t think turning is critical. I think the turbines are just obstacles that shed turbulence, as would buildings or trees. There aren’t many of either, though, at this location in Texas.
I would guess it’s more to do with the many tons of concrete at their bases warming with the sun’s energy and releasing the energy during the night moreso than the surrounding geology allows.
I’m all for politicians and media staying away from information they don’t understand.
But I don’t get it. Wind drives the mill. Mills are passive. How would surface air be more disturbed by mills than by wind.
I smell BS coming off this Report24.
Aerodynamics of spinning blades adds to whatever the wind contributes..
So wind causes spinning blade aerodynamics which causes even more wind.
The smell is getting stronger.
Amazing how you got that.
Spinning blades add to the turbulance.
If it affects one thermometer, than according to standard climate change logic, it means it impacts ten’s of thousands of square kilometers, because that’s how much area each thermometer represents.
No thermometers were involved in this study.
I’m pretty sure there is more than one wind mill in the world, and that the alarmists want that number to keep increasing.
The real damage being done to the environment by eco-nuts, Warmistas, and their fantasy projects is far greater than the imaginary damage supposed to be being done to the environment by CO2.
CO2 actually is a massive positive to all life on Earth at any possible atmospheric level…
The sustenance of all life.
It does ZERO HARM.
Actually it has a cooling effect that is largely ignored.
More foliage means less sunlight warming the ground and more reflected.
It is 80 F in the shade in Vermont
I just walked through my meadow to get to some trees further away.
Direct sunlight is a lot warmer than standing among the trees, which reflect and absorb most of that radiation.
bnice,
That is very true
Net-zero by any date to-reduce CO2 is a super-expensive plant/crop destruction pact to:
1) increase command/control by governments, and
2) enable the moneyed elites to become more powerful and richer, at the expense of all others, by using the foghorn of the government-subsidized/controlled Corporate Media to spread scare-mongering slogans and brainwash people, already for at least 50 years.
.
CO2, just 0.042% in the atmosphere, is a weak absorber of a small fraction of the available, absorbable, low-energy IR photons.
CO2 has near-zero influence on world surface temperatures.
CO2 is a life-giving molecule. Greater CO2 ppm in atmosphere is an essential ingredient to:
1) increase green plants and for animals and reduce desert areas, such as the Sahara, and
2) increase crop yields to better feed 8 billion people.
It is also a fact that the vibrations from wind turbines “scares” away soil life such as worms, beetles, burrowing critters… and gradually makes soil lifeless and compacted.
Not to mention all the chemical useds in extracting neodymium and other products used in their manufacture, leaving huge, putrid sludge lakes in China, killing the land forever.
Then of course, there is the massive environmental damage done during installation.. and at end of their short intermittent life when the blades are chopped up and put in huge land-fill areas, and huge blobs of concrete are just left in the ground, altering the water table and leaching into the soil around them forever.
Funny how this has been ignored by the renewable only crowd.
Wind turbine blade dumping case triggers Texas cleanup order
bnice,
Why not be nice to the mining industry, without which life would be hell.
Rare Earth minerals exist where nature put them. Society assigns zero harm to Nature.
Miners dig some up and leave the remainders in a different place to Mother Nature’s.
They become incredibly awful, “killing the land forever”. How?
Stop talking Tommy Rot. Geoff S
In Germany, open pit mining would leave big scars, but the scars are filled in and a new, energy-efficient village, etc., is built, and you would never know it was an open pit scar.
Actually Geoff, both are true.
hope this image works
As you say.. it doesn’t have to be like that.. but the massive needs for neodymium magnets for wind turbines.. in China…
..That is how it is.
Its the processing chemicals, not the Earth…
Guys – if we’re going to talk about a localized warming effect caused by these hideous, costly, grid-destroying, bird-and-bat-chopping monstrosities, it is important that we use the correct scientific measurement of said warming, which is Hiroshimas.
Humor – a difficult concept.
— Lt. Saavik
That aside, what is good for the goose is good for the gander, eh?
Wind turbine power is not free, nor is it sustainable. The turbines take energy out of the wind. In a place like Australia where wind is needed to take clouds inland what will the downwind effect be?
Hmmm…. Maybe? Maybe the windmills are slowing the air resulting in the heatwave persisting longer?
Absolutely. These donkeys are fiddling with things they don’t understand. In a chaotic system, there is no minimum disturbance to initial conditions which may result in completely unforeseen outcomes!
No such thing as a free lunch. Quite apart from that, turbines wind up being uneconomic for large scale power generation – for various reasons.
But who am I to blow against the wind?
This would be another part of the reason for the lack of life in the soil below wind farms.
No worms, burrowing insects, etc., which aerate the soil and allow water to penetrate more effectively.
Clare Valley winegrowers been using diesel powered turbines to keep frost off vines since? hmm at least 1993? or so and also Coonawarra regions the last few yrs too
A degree warmer at night would not be considered a negative climate effect in the vast majority of the world…
Except it adds to the “hottest eva” exclamations.
All good points.
Add to the list that the towers themselves create a similar UHI effect.
The surface area of the tower has similar effects as glass and steel and concrete in cities.
Simplified: Instead of a 1 square meter of dirt and grass or whatever, you now have a 1 m^2 , 60 m tall surface area.
can’t be that bad, they never seem to be working when I drive past 🤣🤣🤣
stellar!
Not sure if I heard this in engineering school in the middle of the last century or read it somewhere, but it’s nevertheless true — you can never do just one thing.
“You can never do just one thing. Any intrusion into nature has numerous effects, many of which are unpredictable.”
“This famous law was coined by ecologist and systems theorist Garrett Hardin.
It is a core rule in both systems engineering and environmental science.
“The quote means that every action in a complex system has ripple effects.
You cannot change just one variable without altering other parts of the system.”
how do YOU cool down your soup when it is too hot?
Put the microwave into reverse !!
So Germany is cutting down forests, which cool the local environment, so as to build giant windmills, which heat the local environment, as a solution to alleged global warming. That kinda explains everything!!!
There is no problem, the solution is the problem which then justifies the solution which results in a loop as the solution compounds to exacerbate the problem for which it is supposedly the solution.
Alternatively mass de-urbanisation and environmentally (& ecosystem) friendly construction could be mandated, but that wouldn’t further the Woke agenda, finances, or planned catastrophe.
The article addresses the air turbulence effects of WTGs on micro climate temperatures in the WTG “farm.”
Many comments seem to align with that aspect as if it is the “control knob.”
I fell into that trap, too.
I allowed my distain for WTGs to introduce personal bias into my comments.
Failed to consider any analysis of alternatives.
I apologize for that failure.
My course correction:
It is certainly plausible that WTG turbulence has an effect on micro climate temperatures, and plausible the effect is more noticeable at night due.
However, as many have observed, there are many other factors to consider and to base a concrete (pun intended) conclusion on satellite data is irresponsible sans consideration of all of the known factors, speculative or otherwise.
Missing is a comparison of the delta temperature with wind versus no wind.
Likewise with and without clouds and/or rain.
Climate, after all, is more than temperature and all of the attributes interplay.
Missing is a comparison of the delta temperature versus water levels in the air and soil. It is established that WTG farms impact the local micro climate and that includes the ability of the soil to absorb, store, and release water.
The impact extends well beyond the dimensions of the concrete base.
Missing is local air versus WTG structure temperatures.
WTGs have their own UHI equivalence.
A 1 m^2 surface with a 1 m^2 x 1 m tall block of concrete effectively multiplies the surface area by 5.
Given the specific heat capacity of concrete versus the soil, there is a lot of daytime thermal energy stored that is released when the sun goes down.
Compound that concrete base with a 60 m tall 1 m diameter aluminum or steel structure and the surface area increased by more than 50 m^2.
NOTE: The ratios apply whether the base is 1 m^2 or 10 m^2 and will slightly alter given the diameter of the tower versus the dimensions of the base. 1 m^2 is notional and used to illustrate, not define.
Proposed is a null hypothesis test on the wind turbulence aspect that will be relatively simple to accomplish in the field.
Place calibrated temperature sensors on the ground and at precise vertical intervals to measure the air.
Place calibrated temperature sensors on the structure at equivalent vertical intervals.
Start recording. Include cloud coverage (or lack thereof) and wind speed and humidity levels in the air and soil.
A temperature rise is credible.
A quantification of the effects of wind turbulence has not been established.
This could be given to a local university as a field study for geology or other academically aligned students. Perhaps the data could be part of a master’s/doctoral thesis.
There is no energy transition and won’t be.
Energy transition is a funny concept, certainly.
How does one actually transition energy?
Into what does one transition energy, given it is possible?
The US energy transition is well underway:
Renewable energy has dominated adds to the U.S. electrical grid, accounting for nearly 88% of all new electrical generating capacity added. In a single recent record year, the U.S. added 51.6 gigawatts (GW) of new clean power. Consequently, renewables now supply up to 30% of total U.S. electricity generation during peak months.
Recent Grid Additions & Milestones
Solar Surge: Solar power has led all energy sources in new grid capacity for over two consecutive years, adding more than 25 GW in a single year. Wind Power: Wind energy capacity continues to grow as well, adding thousands of megawatts and increasing year-over-year.Historic Milestones: Driven by this rapid expansion, wind and solar alone now account for a record 17% of total U.S. electricity generation, outpacing coal. Clean Power Records: The country hit an unprecedented milestone when renewables (including wind, solar, and hydro) briefly outpaced both coal and fossil fuels for a full month