Dear Alvia, Thank you for sending this information. Has anyone looked into the impact of extensive windfarms on soil moisture content and planetary boundary layer structure? It seems to me that increased turbulence would dry and cool the soil. Increased heat flux to the atmosphere plus the increased turbulence will probably raise the planetary boundary layer and could have an impact on precipitation. However, reduce soil temperature could lead to a lower planetary boundary layer. But I am not a dynamics person. Have you read anything about these effects?
Best Regards, Oliver Wingenter On Nov 28, 4:11 pm, "Alvia Gaskill" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > When renewable energy crosses paths with geoengineering. Note how the > article is quick to dismiss this as an extreme example. Yet, when > geoengineering ideas are discussed in news articles, the worst case is the > only one presented. An example of media bias? > > http://www.livescience.com/environment/081126-wind-farms-change-weath... > > Wind Farms Could Change Weather > > Robert Roy Britt > Editorial Director > LiveScience.com robert Roy Britt > editorial Director > livescience.com – Thu Nov 27, 9:47 am ET > Reuters – Turbines from China's largest wind farm dot a windswept plain in > the remote northwest Xinjiang region … > A new study suggests that massive wind farms could steer storms and alter the > weather if extensive fields of turbines were built, according to a news > report. > > It is not the first study to come to this conclusion. > > The new research is an interesting "what if," but the installation of large > wind turbines would have to be taken to the extreme to have the global > effects portrayed. > > The scientists, Daniel Barrie and Daniel Kirk-Davidoff of the University of > Maryland, calculated "what might happen if all the land from Texas to central > Canada, and from the Great Lakes to the Rocky Mountains, were covered in one > massive wind farm," according to Discovery News. The result of such an > unlikely installation: a real serious Butterfly Effect. > > Such massive wind farming would slow wind speeds by 5 or 6 mph as the > turbines literally stole wind from the air. A ripple effect would occur in > the form of waves radiating across the Northern Hemisphere that could, days > later, run into storms and alter their courses by hundreds of miles. > > The researchers "acknowledged the hypothetical wind farm was far larger than > anything humans are likely to build," according to the Web site, but if > Department of Energy projections for wind farming are met by 2030 (for the > country to get 20 percent of its electricity from wind), "it could probably > have an effect," James McCaa of 3Tier, Inc., a renewable energy forecasting > company based in Seattle, is quoted as saying. > > In 2004, two separate groups of scientists did similar calculations. > > One group found the opposite effect. > > Somnath Baidya Roy of Princeton University and colleagues simulated the > effect of extensive wind farms on local weather. They found a drying and > warming effect in the morning that would warm the air across moist and cool > overnight soil, causing the local wind speed to increase slightly. > > Also in 2004, David Keith of the University of Calgary and his colleagues > estimated the drag from wind farms if they covered 10 percent of the Earth's > land surface. They concluded that global cooling would occur in polar regions > and global warming would result in temperate regions such as North America at > about 30 degrees North latitude. > > When that study was released, Keith had an interesting take on the > possibility: "The message here is climate change, but that doesn't equal > global warming," Keith said. "It's possible this would have benefits," by > working against the atmospheric effects of fossil fuel consumption on global > climate, he said. > > 2008_11_26t080542_450x326_us_eu_emissions_ets.jpg?x=213&y=154&xc=1&yc=1&wc=410&hc=296&q=100&sig=NtQjDAs.Ye50KsqGYbtd3A-- > 25KViewDownload --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
