Question. Is extracting wind power causing some climate change problems?

[sjastro]

You continue with blinkered vision, so your model is not useful at all.

The question posed is the extent to which windmills alter microclimate , which they clearly do.
As various others have noted in literature.
But there is little consensus or indeed systematic testing, yet humanity races ahead none the less With no idea of what it is unleashing,

My goodness this is not about "my model" at all.

For someone who claims to have a mega IQ and everyone else is stupid by comparison, this thread has revealed you have lack of basic comprehension skills.
The point in particular that has gone way over your head are my posts are written within the scope of your pseudoscience claptrap now emphasized in beautiful technicolor.

And this.

How many times does it need to be explained before it sinks in the changes in microclimate caused by "windmills" is not a result of your pseudoscience nonsense but the action of the wind turbine's downwind stream tube resulting in turbulence and a disruption of the atmosphere's thermal layers.

Your comment says it all About cloud.
You seem incapable of lateral thinking - which physical modellers have to do.

Cloud is part of the earths natural defence against sun.
If disturbance of wind Patterns is disturbing cloud formation the net result can be a multiplier in damage done to environment.

It is pointless for physical modelers to engage in lateral thinking when they can't even get the science right.
Your model violates the first law of thermodynamics and the conservation of energy and the best you could do is to resort to snide comments instead of showing your model does conform.
It makes the impact of clouds irrelevant as your model is pure pseudoscience.

Since you have now told us you are a lateral thinker along with being a profound genius reminds of Carl Sagan's famous quote.

This is what has occurred in this thread.

 

[Frank Robert]

I am in good company - there are those at Harvard who agree.

So you say!

​

 

[Bradskii]

As I discovered by looking at his other threads , he’s rude to all who disagree With him.

You are breaking forum rules:

"Calling out" a member is an unsolicited comment about another member in reference to something they may have said".

 

[Mountainmike]

You are breaking forum rules:

"Calling out" a member is an unsolicited comment about another member in reference to something they may have said".

Only in desperation! Read his responses to me…. not exactly “ polite”

Anyway @Bradskii answer the more important question:

1/ do you accept that windmills slow the wind.

2/ do you accept windspeed is part of what affects climate downstream which is complex!

3/ do you agree we should try to find out before multiplying a potential problem.

Its all I’ve said - other than concrete examples of why windspeed matters eg reducing moisture pick-up, reducing associated cooling, also potentially cloud and sunshine!

As I said, it was only ever a throwaway observation to get minds thinking .
Alas…if only I had known The response.

 

[Frank Robert]

We are not continuing this on two threads.

sjastro has yet to grasp even the simplest basics of a windmill.
It extracts the energy by slowing wind.

Who would have guessed that!! not him obviously….
even 8th graders don’t have a problem with it but Sjastro does,

Do you have a problem with simple things like that @Frank Robert ?

It is hard to have scientific discussion with non scientists like him. So I give up on that.

Its not just a local effect. The energy is not put back.
Slowing wind may have serious consequences. Obviously. Or obvious to all but him.
others have even considered that windfarms could alter the course of hurricane. Look it up.
That’s not trivial

Lets move on.
It was a throwaway topic of passing interest , not intended to start a months long Sjastro rant.

I don't think many commenters here disagree that wind mills cause heating. The question is how much heating and the net results?

You make claims w/o any links of where they come from. Then you say to look it up. Well I and others have and we find that while there are some heating effects they are negligible compared to the benefits. In effect you are stating your own opinion.

Expert reaction to research on climatic impact of wind power ​

Prof John Shepherd FRS, Emeritus Professor in Earth System Science at the University of Southampton, said:

“The model results support observations that wind turbines cause some near-surface warming, because they increase mixing of the lower atmosphere, as do trees and tall buildings. The effect is quite small, and occurs mainly at night (when temperatures are often higher well above the ground). Unlike burning of fossil fuels, the warming is due to the redistribution rather than addition of heat. It occurs immediately, and is mostly confined to the continental area where the power is being generated. The warming only happens once (for a given level of power being generated), so unlike burning fossil fuels it does not build up cumulatively over many centuries and all over the world. The headline figure of 0.24 C of warming sounds a lot, but this relates to a very large deployment of wind turbines (enough to generate all current US electricity) and applies only to the continental USA: it therefore equates to about 65 times less of global warming. Comparing the effects with those of fossil fuels is quite complicated, but overall (as the authors say) wind power “still beats fossil fuels under any reasonable measure of long-term environmental impacts”.​

​

Prof Kevin Anderson, Professor of Energy and Climate Change at the University of Manchester and Deputy Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said:

“David Keith always adds curious nuances to a debate. Here his work on wind power needs to be considered alongside other similarly interesting but ultimately minor factors.​

​

“A significant proportion of the energy used to propel the globe’s 1.5 billion passenger and commercial vehicles and to keep the 100 thousand flights per day in the sky goes into pushing huge quantities of air out of the way. Add to this how cities and towns not only create heat islands but also move, channel and absorb energy from the wind. All of these will have some small impact on the climate at some particular scale. But let’s not get lost in the noise. Whilst scientists and academics rightly spend hours poring over every detail, the headline message remains unchanged. The climate change we are witnessing and looks set to continue arises primarily from burning fossil fuels – with deforestation and eating meat also important factors. So great to see David’s paper – but let’s keep it in perspective and not use it as yet another excuse for kicking real mitigation still further into the long grass.”​

Read more...

 

[Mountainmike]

I don't think many commenters here disagree that wind mills cause heating. The question is how much heating and the net results?

You make claims w/o any links of where they come from. Then you say to look it up. Well I and others have and we find that while there are some heating effects they are negligible compared to the benefits. In effect you are stating your own opinion.

Expert reaction to research on climatic impact of wind power ​

Prof John Shepherd FRS, Emeritus Professor in Earth System Science at the University of Southampton, said:

“The model results support observations that wind turbines cause some near-surface warming, because they increase mixing of the lower atmosphere, as do trees and tall buildings. The effect is quite small, and occurs mainly at night (when temperatures are often higher well above the ground)​

It’s not the point I am making.

Try to distinguish two wholly Separate issues ,

The local model and evidence is what it is, fairly well described in the above you refer.
He describes the present local ( regional) impact studies .
As he says “The model results support observations that wind turbines cause some near-surface warming, because they increase mixing of the lower atmosphere, as do trees and tall buildings. The effect is quite small, and occurs mainly at night (when temperatures are often higher well above the ground).
I don’t dispute.

But it’s not the whole picture,
What is not said - the point I make, is what they are not measuring or modelling. The longer range impact.
Everywhere down stream of the windfarms beyond local / near region the wind has less energy .

So the entire downstream climate is / could be affected, from wind, therefore moisture pick-up , potentially cloud formation, rainfall pattern and so on.

Actual measurements are hard even for local impact because weather is not stable enough and measurements were not in place long enough to before and after pictures ( as some studies say) so they resort to models which are only as good as the modelling. There is little or no far reaching impact measure or modelling.

As yet we harvest less than 0.1% of wind energy. the effects are small
But with plans to harvest a great deal more. The more far reaching effects will then become apparent.
I just think we should put a lot more effort into discovering total impact first.

Im guessing the effects in coastal regions near mountains is far more profound, because they are the rain generators, but it’s also the concentrations of people where power is harvested.
And it’s also the bread basket in such as Portugal.

All we know for sure is:
1/ we are slowing wind down ( with a lot of turbulence too)
2/ we know that reducing moisture pick-up removes a source of cooling, it reduces moisture so potentially cloud and rain down stream, indeed world wind stream Patterns may be affected

Some are saying you might tame hurricanes.
Iattach As example at end - that tells you the effexts are not small.

Others have said “ might cause additional ice melt, we don’t know” even rain affected in Sahara?

But can they also cause a drought? failed crops?
I wouldnt bet against it.
I think we should walk before run! The effects might even be beneficial. or dire. Or a mix.
The conclusion might just be… don’t put a windfarm in specific areas,

My conclusion is find out before it causes problems,
This was just a throw away topic I thought to be of general interest .
if I had known it would be a headbanger I would not have bothered!!

One of the scientific laws I discovered in a career of modelling is the law of unintended consequence!

An example.

https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/WindHurricane/HurricTurbPaperNatCC.pdf

 

[timothyu]

It extracts the energy by slowing wind.

So airplane propellers speed up the wind as their energy comes from a different source?

 

[Frank Robert]

One of the scientific laws I discovered in a career of modelling is the law of unintended consequence!

We agree that there are short term untended warming but you have not shown that wind turbines have long term effects on climate warming. I know you think there might be. However you have not provided any evidence so it remains your opinion which you are entitled to.

Wide-scale US wind power | MIT Tech Review​

A Harvard study raises questions about just how much wind should be part of a climate solution.

​

...There are some important limitations to the study. It notes that the warming effect depends strongly on local weather conditions, as well as the type and placement of turbines. It didn’t analyze impacts outside the continental United States or time periods beyond a year. And it's difficult to imagine anything approaching this level of wind power actually being built in the nation.​

​

Stanford professor John Dabiri criticized the study, saying the simulations relied on a proxy for wind turbines that increases aerodynamic drag at the earth’s surface (see “John Dabiri: Innovators Under 35”).​

​

“It is well known that this type of modeling assumption does a poor job of predicting the flow in real wind farms,” he said in an e-mail.​

​

Dabiri, an expert on wind turbine designs, says a “more realistic” earlier simulation found “little temperature change near the surface.”​

​

The American Wind Energy Association swiftly challenged the framing of the conclusions as well.​

​

"Because the recent study only focuses on localized impacts over a short time period, it greatly overstates the surface temperature impact of renewable resources relative to fossil fuels," read a statement forwarded to MIT Technology Review, attributed to the trade group's former senior director of research, Michael Goggin. "If the paper instead looked across the global and long-lasting timescales that matter, renewable resources would fare hundreds of times if not infinitely better than fossil resources."​

​

The Harvard researchers said their findings closely matched directly observed effects from hundreds of US wind farms.​

​

Keith, (author) an outspoken proponent of clean energy to combat global warming, says he’s sure the paper will be misinterpreted or misrepresented by some to argue against the rollout of wind power. Emphasis added.​

Your link is to an article that concludes offshore wind turbines offer a "viable and cost-effective" way to reduce the impact of hurricanes by extracting more energy from the hurricanes. It makes no mention of long term effects of wind turbines.

 

[Mountainmike]

We agree that there are short term untended warming but you have not shown that wind turbines have long term effects on climate warming. I know you think there might be. However you have not provided any evidence so it remains your opinion which you are entitled to.

Wide-scale US wind power | MIT Tech Review​

A Harvard study raises questions about just how much wind should be part of a climate solution.

​

...There are some important limitations to the study. It notes that the warming effect depends strongly on local weather conditions, as well as the type and placement of turbines. It didn’t analyze impacts outside the continental United States or time periods beyond a year. And it's difficult to imagine anything approaching this level of wind power actually being built in the nation.​

​

Stanford professor John Dabiri criticized the study, saying the simulations relied on a proxy for wind turbines that increases aerodynamic drag at the earth’s surface (see “John Dabiri: Innovators Under 35”).​

​

“It is well known that this type of modeling assumption does a poor job of predicting the flow in real wind farms,” he said in an e-mail.​

​

Dabiri, an expert on wind turbine designs, says a “more realistic” earlier simulation found “little temperature change near the surface.”​

​

The American Wind Energy Association swiftly challenged the framing of the conclusions as well.​

​

"Because the recent study only focuses on localized impacts over a short time period, it greatly overstates the surface temperature impact of renewable resources relative to fossil fuels," read a statement forwarded to MIT Technology Review, attributed to the trade group's former senior director of research, Michael Goggin. "If the paper instead looked across the global and long-lasting timescales that matter, renewable resources would fare hundreds of times if not infinitely better than fossil resources."​

​

The Harvard researchers said their findings closely matched directly observed effects from hundreds of US wind farms.​

​

Keith, (author) an outspoken proponent of clean energy to combat global warming, says he’s sure the paper will be misinterpreted or misrepresented by some to argue against the rollout of wind power. Emphasis added.​

Your link is to an article that concludes offshore wind turbines offer a "viable and cost-effective" way to reduce the impact of hurricanes by extracting more energy from the hurricanes. It makes no mention of long term effects of wind turbines.

if the wind reduction effect of turbines is modelled to make substantial reduction in hurricanes, so it is clearly climate changing, and Therefore needs due care.

There are so many variables it’s hard to predict, and my argument is plausibility not a proof.

But wind is an essential part of climate, that links to everything else, from mioisture take up, to potentially reducing Ground cooling, cloud , precipation the lot. Potentially starving areas of rain.

The default assumption MUST be it will cause SOME changes and for that reason alone we must be careful.

I didn’t argue against roll out. I argued against mass proliferation without due care.

I also don’t think unreliables can form the bedrock of energy, without a major philosophy of use change, although they are a helpful addition.

Whilst there may be a benefit in reducing storm weather, it could easily cause serious unexpected change or damage too,

All new big sites should in my view do detailed tests at 10m to 100miles before installation to have detailed base of data to compare in active use.

My biggest concern is on shore windmills on hilly terrain, not offshore : Portugal has wind farms on many ridges. it is seriously unpredictable. Changes to the agricultural land climate downstream would cause a serious problem.

The wind establishment in both academia and industry is earning too much money, and has too many political backers , to be sure they are being careful enough. Or indeed - whether a blind eye is being turned to anomalous data never adequately followed up.

Anyway I’ve aired a view. We shall see.
Weather process is chaotic - the metaphorical butterfly wing that can create a storm.

As I have said it might actually be beneficial.
more likely some sites are beneficial and others are a problem, it’s a matter of recognising which is which.

We are taking less than 0.1% of wind - if it becomes 1-2% Expecy much more impact .

 

[sjastro]

It’s not the point I am making.

Try to distinguish two wholly Separate issues ,

The local model and evidence is what it is, fairly well described in the above you refer.
He describes the present local ( regional) impact studies .
As he says “The model results support observations that wind turbines cause some near-surface warming, because they increase mixing of the lower atmosphere, as do trees and tall buildings. The effect is quite small, and occurs mainly at night (when temperatures are often higher well above the ground).
I don’t dispute.

How interesting you don't dispute it now given I was making the same comments in the other thread which led to your cowardly personal attack on me which violates forum rules and is based on pure deception.

sjastro has yet to grasp even the simplest basics of a windmill.
It extracts the energy by slowing wind.

Who would have guessed that!! not him obviously….
even 8th graders don’t have a problem with it but Sjastro does,.............
................Lets move on.
It was a throwaway topic of passing interest , not intended to start a months long Sjastro rant.

If I have absolutely no idea that wind is slowed down then why would I be posting an image of the mechanism as shown in post#50 to support my argument.

But it’s not the whole picture,
What is not said - the point I make, is what they are not measuring or modelling. The longer range impact.
Everywhere down stream of the windfarms beyond local / near region the wind has less energy .

So the entire downstream climate is / could be affected, from wind, therefore moisture pick-up , potentially cloud formation, rainfall pattern and so on.

And where exactly does heat dissipation caused by wind turbine inefficiency fit into the picture here given the turbine efficiency(%)= (mechanical energy of turbine/kinetic energy of wind) x 100?

Actual measurements are hard even for local impact because weather is not stable enough and measurements were not in place long enough to before and after pictures ( as some studies say) so they resort to models which are only as good as the modelling. There is little or no far reaching impact measure or modelling.

As yet we harvest less than 0.1% of wind energy. the effects are small
But with plans to harvest a great deal more. The more far reaching effects will then become apparent.
I just think we should put a lot more effort into discovering total impact first.

Im guessing the effects in coastal regions near mountains is far more profound, because they are the rain generators, but it’s also the concentrations of people where power is harvested.
And it’s also the bread basket in such as Portugal.

All we know for sure is:
1/ we are slowing wind down ( with a lot of turbulence too)
2/ we know that reducing moisture pick-up removes a source of cooling, it reduces moisture so potentially cloud and rain down stream, indeed world wind stream Patterns may be affected

Some are saying you might tame hurricanes.
Iattach As example at end - that tells you the effexts are not small.

Others have said “ might cause additional ice melt, we don’t know” even rain affected in Sahara?

But can they also cause a drought? failed crops?
I wouldnt bet against it.
I think we should walk before run! The effects might even be beneficial. or dire. Or a mix.
The conclusion might just be… don’t put a windfarm in specific areas,

My conclusion is find out before it causes problems,
This was just a throw away topic I thought to be of general interest .
if I had known it would be a headbanger I would not have bothered!!

One of the scientific laws I discovered in a career of modelling is the law of unintended consequence!

An example.

https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/WindHurricane/HurricTurbPaperNatCC.pdf

Here again is the image of the Danish wind farm which shows the "range of action" of wake effects which is nowhere near the scales required to cause droughts, increase rainfall, melt ice sheets etc.

Wind farms can only cause microclimate changes.

 

[Bradskii]

if I had known it would be a headbanger I would not have bothered!!

We all wish that...

 

[Mountainmike]

@sjastro ”windmills can only cause microclimate changes” !!???

Seems you can’t even do energy balance.
Everywhere downstream has less energy so less wind velocity, and complex feedback loops Into the wider climate.
Id say that technology capable of changing the path or strength hurricanes , to protect land downstream is not
“ microclimate”

And the very picture you claim supports you, does the exact opposite, it supports a point I made….
Apart from adiabatic effects causing the condensation, as you will notice:
Everywhere beyond the turbines , apart from having less wind, is cloudier, so sunlight is reflected back up into space, so less sun energy is reaching the Ground- affecting downstream energy balance..
It’s second order unmodelled feedback effects that will be the problem.

So as I said from the start, it is not a closed system.
And that is where the modelling problems start.
If you mess with wind and cloud formation , all other bets are off.
And As I keep telling you, climate is complex.
You seemingly cant see past the end of your nose!!

We were paid to notice what others did not.
And model what others were not. It’s what raises red flags for me here.
Like how the impact of thermoclines ( which are just a meaningless word to you)
affected the ability of radar to see , locate or track. Again it’s complicated.
And at that point we enter the world of secrets, so you will have to guess.
But I’ve modelled long range weather- surveillance radar can have a long path.
Rest assured we were way ahead of published literature At the time. It’s what military scientists do.

The unintended consequences of what is not yet modelled may be dire…or beneficial.
I expect some of both. The ONLY point I tried to make was we should walk before trying to run.
Before we suffer the consequences of inadequate modelling.

 

[Mountainmike]

We all wish that...

Pick something else to talk about.
Whats your favourite bit of science - as in you are reading up on - at present?

 

[Bradskii]

Pick something else to talk about.
Whats your favourite bit of science - as in you are reading up on - at present?

I have nothing I wish to discuss with you.

 

[Larniavc]

What is being extracted?

Windmills extra cold from the atmosphere. If cold could be stored imagine the possibilities. Air Con would be freed from any energy requirement if cold could be directly supplied to the unit without having to use electricity.

 

[Mountainmike]

I have nothing I wish to discuss with you.

You just did discuss unwillingness to discuss.
Thats odd for a discussion forum! - But not much surprises me here…

 

[sjastro]

@sjastro ”windmills can only cause microclimate changes” !!???

Seems you can’t even do energy balance.
Everywhere downstream has less energy so less wind velocity, and complex feedback loops Into the wider climate.
Id say that technology capable of changing the path or strength hurricanes , to protect land downstream is not
“ microclimate”

Do I need to remind you this thread is about the real effects of wind farms on the climate, not hypothetical turbine arrays numbering tens of thousands of wind turbines changing the path or strength of hurricanes.

And the very picture you claim supports you, does the exact opposite, it supports a point I made….
Apart from adiabatic effects causing the condensation, as you will notice:
Everywhere beyond the turbines , apart from having less wind, is cloudier, so sunlight is reflected back up into space, so less sun energy is reaching the Ground- affecting downstream energy balance..
It’s second order unmodelled feedback effects that will be the problem.

So as I said from the start, it is not a closed system.
And that is where the modelling problems start.
If you mess with wind and cloud formation , all other bets are off.
And As I keep telling you, climate is complex.
You seemingly cant see past the end of your nose!!

To coin your own phrase spare me this simplistic nonsense.
If it is true you are "physical modeler" familiar with fluid mechanics then you should have realised the Reynolds number for air can be high.
In case you don’t know what this is which wouldn’t surprise me, a high Reynolds number means air is turbulent and the TKE (turbulence kinetic energy) associated with eddies in turbulent flow undergoes an energy cascade as the eddies are unstable and go from large to small scales.
The result is the wind farm's wake dissipates rapidly with distance.

So the image which you claim “supports a point I made..” is patently untrue and actual measurements using synthetic aperture radar of the Horns Dev wind farm show the wake can only extend 5-20 km beyond the wind farm depending on local conditions.
It’s gets back to my original point the scale of a wind farm's wake is far too small to affect the external environment and is confined to microclimate scales.

We were paid to notice what others did not.
And model what others were not. It’s what raises red flags for me here.
Like how the impact of thermoclines ( which are just a meaningless word to you)
affected the ability of radar to see , locate or track. Again it’s complicated.
And at that point we enter the world of secrets, so you will have to guess.
But I’ve modelled long range weather- surveillance radar can have a long path.
Rest assured we were way ahead of published literature At the time. It’s what military scientists do.

The unintended consequences of what is not yet modelled may be dire…or beneficial.
I expect some of both. The ONLY point I tried to make was we should walk before trying to run.
Before we suffer the consequences of inadequate modelling.

If I wanted to read cloak and dagger stories I would much rather prefer John Le Carre than you.

 

[JohnEmmett]

Pick something else to talk about.

Potential for a time loop


No one wants to question linear time

 

[Frank Robert]

There are so many variables it’s hard to predict, and my argument is plausibility not a proof.

Yes, we agree that it is hard to predict, however, you offer nothing but your opinion which you are entitled to.

On the other hand you offer nothing that refutes with I wrote above, which is no just my opinion but expert opinions.

Read for yourself: Expert reaction to research on climatic impact of wind power​

And just in case you missed it, I will repeat what Keith, the author of the article wind turbines said:

Keith, (author) an outspoken proponent of clean energy to combat global warming, says he’s sure the paper will be misinterpreted or misrepresented by some to argue against the rollout of wind power. Emphasis added.​

​

I think it is fair to say that Keith was anticipating your type of misinterpretation and misrepresentation.

If you have read some of my other posts you would know that I am pessimistic on climate change. While I believe it is still possible to limit some of the worse predictions humans will still need to adapt to a much warmer climate at a time when the world will be hitting Limits to Growth.

The down arrow represents the mid 2030s.

The Boy Scout Motto:

 

[JohnEmmett]

humans will still need to adapt to a much warmer climate at a time when the world will be hitting Limits to Growth.

You’re talking about the current timeline


Perhaps there is another try…