Wind farms create climate change and make it hotter
THIS really is the most glorious story. We’re told that we have to put up bat slicers all over the country in order to beat climate change. When, in fact, the bird choppers themselves create climate change:
Large windfarms can increase local night time temperatures by fanning warmer air onto the ground, new research has revealed. The study used satellite data to show that the building of huge wind farms in west Texas over the last decade has warmed the nights by up to 0.72C.
We should note that this is real science too, published in Nature and all.
The actual mechanism is that at night the air above the ground is generally warmer than the ground itsel. Thus the air itself near the ground is cooler than the air higher up. As the windmill blades turn the layers of air get mixed thus raising the temperature of the air near the ground.
The effect is large enough to be seen from satellites. In fact, it’s worth putting the effect into contect. That 0.72 degrees is damn near the same as the 0.8 degrees that the planet is supposed to have warmed since we started this whole industrial revolution and burning fossil fuel things.
So, there we have it, in order to beat climate change we’ve got to heat up the atmosphere.
Posted: 30th, April 2012 | In: Reviews Comments (2) | TrackBack | Permalink
