Wind Farms, Global Warming Connection Lukewarm At Best

Earth Techling:

A study released yesterday by researchers finds that large wind farms may impact local temperatures, noting a night warming effect in certain areas in Texas caused by “the turbulence in turbine wakes acting like fans to pull down warmer near surface air from higher altitudes at night.” As Natural Resources Defense Council already pointed out, select media outlets covering this study have generated bad headlines which conflate “small-scale, local impacts on nighttime land surface temperatures and global climate disruption.”

Read the whole story at Earth Techling

From our partners

• How Two Determined Sisters Set Up A Pet Rescue Pipeline To Colorado - Mother Nature Network
• Panel Finds Flaws In Hurricane Sandy Warning System - Climate Central
• 11 Images And Facts About A Misunderstood Creature - Mother Nature Network

Comments

[Linus521]

12:36 PM on 05/02/2012

In Florida, when the weather gets cool, they use fans or windmills to save the citrus crop! It saves the fruit from freezing.

Science has many examples of, what sits on the surface of the Earth, impacts climate, precisely why cities are referred to as "heat islands". Cities have hotter climates.

When they plowed the Great Plains grassland ecosystem for agriculture, that climate heated up. Along the U.S. and Mexico border, both sharing the same, wild and natural ecosystem, Mexico introduced cattle to their side of the border, and the cattle consumed some of the natural plant biodiversity, leaving bare soil exposed on their side of the system. Their side of the border's climate grew hotter.

Many scientists are more concerned with land-use/change than climate change or killing ecosystems and their natural resources.

"I would like to focus on a related and arguably more urgent issue: land use and land use change." The operative word here is, "related."

[ubrew12]

05:53 PM on 05/02/2012

Yup. On clear nights, the ground cools by radiation to space, and ends up cooler than the air above it. By morning this leads to dew and, in bad cases, frost. Windmills would help vertical mixing, prevent frost islands from occurring as badly.

[DeanWormer]

12:24 AM on 05/02/2012

Now who would have the gall to take a local incident and expand it into a worldwide calamity??

[GotDat Wright]

11:42 PM on 05/01/2012

...

Let's drill this country like C.lin.ton on a pork intern..

[DeanWormer]

12:26 AM on 05/02/2012

Maybe not exactly like that....don't want oil spills everywhere...

[GotDat Wright]

11:40 PM on 05/01/2012

....

This has the potential to destroy the rare desert fa.rt blossom....
.

[GotDat Wright]

11:38 PM on 05/01/2012

...

Windmills, solar....Trains...O sounds like Pa Engles.

[Son of Liberty 1765]

11:11 PM on 05/01/2012

Wow. Quoting Media Matters to make a point. That's like putting the wolf in charge of justifying eating the livestock.

[Dallas Dunlap]

05:49 AM on 05/02/2012

SOL1765 - I notice that Media Matters, which analyzes news coverage and tries to present the stories in an unbiased way, is the right wing bad guy of the day. How do you guys keep up with whom you're supposed to hate? Media Matters, Planned Parenthood, Al Gore, etc.
Is there a nutso central somewhere that tells you the current Immanuel Goldstein?
As propaganda, it's brilliant. If someone refers you to a peper on a science site, you can dismiss it as "biased" because, you know, science. And if Media Matters points out obvious mistakes in coverage of a story, you can ignore it because, come on, Media Matters!

[DocSkull]

05:43 PM on 05/02/2012

Media Matters merely quotes incorrect pieces posing as news and then links to materials which demonstrate it to be wrong. That should only be threatening if you lie.

[ceekreewd]

10:28 PM on 05/01/2012

OMG ! The Greenies are destroying the planet !! Can't wait fro the collapse of the American desert's ecosystem when thousands and thousands of acres are covered by solar panels...

[ubrew12]

05:51 PM on 05/02/2012

Thanks to global warming, I hardly think the desert ecosystem is threatened. More like: expanding.

[sheila]

06:50 PM on 05/02/2012

Desert and "desertification" are opposites. The former is a critical, intentional and hugely biodiverse ecosystem teeming with life and balancing the other ecosystems of the planet. The latter is what happens after humans destroy these desert and many other ecosystems with "scorched earth" industrialization like Big Solar. Totally different.

[June25]

07:04 PM on 05/01/2012

Requires further investigation.Three words that mean more tax payer money for a collage study thats going nowhere.

[steve11407]

06:17 PM on 05/01/2012

Yes, that claim is bogus. This one is not.
http://mnstatenews.com/capitol-headlines/361-rural-electric-customers-pay-the-price-for-renewable-energy-mandate.html

[blackwind]

03:00 AM on 05/02/2012

They got off easy. Compare those costs to the costs of this nuclear boondoggle:

"Because these plants generated no power and brought in no money, the system was forced to default on $2.25 billion in bonds. This meant that the member utilities, and ultimately the rate payers, were obligated to pay back the borrowed money. In some small towns where unemployment due to the recession was already high, this amounted to more than $12,000 per customer."
http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=5482

[Pabloe Cruuz]

05:07 PM on 05/01/2012

They are like propellers and are changing the rotation of the earth.
The "debate is over' aL WAS RIGHT.