Wind farms cause global warming.

[iNow]

That's a no brainer

Yes, I agree. There seems to be a definite lack of activity in the analytical, logical, reasonable parts of your brain on this issue. This is not, however, an ad hominem. It's an observation.

[esbo]

!

Moderator Note

And neither do any of your posts in this thread. All you've managed to do thus far is posit baseless speculation, claimed statistics without references and offhandedly ignored the counter-evidence provided to you by others with a simple, 'that's obviously wrong', with no real explanation as to why. If you want us to believe you, you'll need to convince us. You'll need to provide evidence to back up your claims and you'll need to have reasonable and logical explanations for any counter points and questions asked of you. If you can't do that, I'll be closing this thread.

 

If you fully quote in context anything you have a problem with and explain why I will clarify it for you.

 

Yes, I agree. There seems to be a definite lack of activity in the analytical, logical, reasonable parts of your brain on this issue. This is not, however, an ad hominem. It's an observation.

 

Fair enough, you are entitled to your opinion but rather than attack my brain functionality attack my argument.

[hypervalent_iodine]

If you fully quote in context anything you have a problem with and explain why I will clarify it for you.

 

 

!

Moderator Note

esbo, I am not participating as a member in this thread but as a moderator. You are required to back up your claims with evidence and so far you have not done that with a single one of your claims. I am giving you a chance to go back and do this.

[esbo]

OK lets do this a a step at a time.

 

Claim 1) Wind turbines slow down the flow or air, ie the wind that passes by them.

 

If we can agree on this I will more onto the next claim immediately, if not I will provide further evidence to back up this claim.

 

If fact I will go the extra mile and produce this document and I quote "By extracting power, the turbine itself has an effect on the wind: downwind of the turbine the air moves more slowly than upwind."

 

http://www.gurit.com/files/documents/2_aerodynamics.pdf (page one 5th paragraph).

 

If this is accepted I will advance to the other claims.

 

If not you might as well lock it and save me wasting my time.

[swansont]

It is not like that at all.

IF you restrict the flow of money (heat) out of your account the balance (heat) will increase.

This is what is happening you are restricting the flow of air which takes heat away from the surface of the earth.

 

The heat has to come from somewhere, because energy is conserved. This is within the earth system — with no other changes, if it warms in one place it has to cool in another. You don't magically create heat.

[Leader Bee]

OK lets do this a a step at a time.

 

Claim 1) Wind turbines slow down the flow or air, ie the wind that passes by them.

 

If we can agree on this I will more onto the next claim immediately, if not I will provide further evidence to back up this claim.

If fact I will go the extra mile and produce this document and I quote "By extracting power, the turbine itself has an effect on the wind: downwind of the turbine the air moves more slowly than upwind."

 

http://www.gurit.com/files/documents/2_aerodynamics.pdf (page one 5th paragraph).

 

If this is accepted I will advance to the other claims.

 

If not you might as well lock it and save me wasting my time.

 

 

If we can all agree on this? Based on what evidence?

 

I believe the onous is on yourself to back up your claims, not for us to seek eveidence that what you claim to be true is infact true.

 

If say you were to go down to a wind farm and take wind speed measurements; not once but once a week (or more) over the course of a year to take into account weather changes over the seasons and then present us with your data we would have reason to listen to you. You kindly provided a link which I followed and read the part you noted - perhaps I am missing something but this is the same circular argument you have been posting already and nowhere does it state the reasons for any wind speed changes only that the windfarm is the cause. Why is the wind farm the reason for loss in wind speed?

 

Please back up your claims.

[Arete]

I have read a brief summary of the paper and it is obvious it is a mainly worthless report, one which not

right minded person would pay to see, the only people who would pay to see it are scientifically

classified as 'mugs'.

 

Did you actually read beyond the Daily Telegraph article? Reading a Daily Telegraph article and considering yourself informed on a Nature paper would be like reading the Pizza Hut menu and considering yourself informed on Italian cuisine...

[esbo]

If we can all agree on this? Based on what evidence?

 

I believe the onous is on yourself to back up your claims, not for us to seek eveidence that what you claim to be true is infact true.

 

If say you were to go down to a wind farm and take wind speed measurements; not once but once a week (or more) over the course of a year to take into account weather changes over the seasons and then present us with your data we would have reason to listen to you. You kindly provided a link which I followed and read the part you noted - perhaps I am missing something but this is the same circular argument you have been posting already and nowhere does it state the reasons for any wind speed changes only that the windfarm is the cause. Why is the wind farm the reason for loss in wind speed?

 

Please back up your claims.

 

 

I so are you denying that wind farms slow they wind down?

 

Give me a yes or no.

 

Did you actually read beyond the Daily Telegraph article? Reading a Daily Telegraph article and considering yourself informed on a Nature paper would be like reading the Pizza Hut menu and considering yourself informed on Italian cuisine...

 

I am taking a different course.

 

I so are you denying that wind farms slow they wind down?

 

Give me a yes or no.

[Leader Bee]

I so are you denying that wind farms slow they wind down?

 

Give me a yes or no.

 

 

 

I am taking a different course.

 

I so are you denying that wind farms slow they wind down?

 

Give me a yes or no.

 

I am neither confirming or denying that wind farms slow the wind down because I do not know and I do not have any evidence upon which to base my answer. I am asking you to provide data to support your claim and you have failed to provide this to me and any other serious poster in this thread so far.

 

Please note the underlined as this is important when discussing the topic. How are you supposed to get an answer if your readership knows little or nothing about the subject and you have also failed to supply any supporting evidence? You are asking us to believe what you say is true just because you said it is yet not providing any data to back up this claim so that we may form an educated opinion on your suggestion.

 

Once again; Please provide evidence that Wind farms slow down windspeed and contribute to Global Warming.

Edited May 2, 2012 by Leader Bee

[Arete]

Give me a yes or no.

 

It's irrelevent. The research poses a scenario by which the action of the wind turbines creates a downdraft in the atmosphere, homogenizing upper layers with lower layers. In this particular scenario, the upper layers are expected to be warmer than the underlying layers, creating a localized high pressure system which results in a localized warming effect. "Slowing the wind down" has never been proposed as the mechanism by which this temperature differential was observed, except by you, and you have no data, and now it seems everything you've read on the subject comes from a tabloid newspaper article.

 

Now a) when you move a body of air, another body of air replaces it. Thus the cool air displaced by the descending hot air went somewhere else and presumably, if the place it went was warmer it had a localized cooling effect. The net effect of the air movement on global temperatures is zero and the idea that it has a any effect on global temperatures is a blatant misconception. There is no mechanism by which a net heating effect is taking place.

b) The assumption that hotter air resides above colder air does not hold true in other places - http://en.wikipedia....8meteorology%29 meaning that the effect described here does not extrapolate to all conceivable locations in which wind farms are. In fact, in general air higher up in the atmosphere is colder than that near the surface of the earth so in many other places opposite effect could well be observed.

Edited May 2, 2012 by Arete

[iNow]

From a year and a half ago: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-wind-turbines-affect-temperature

 

Also, I get the sense that you are equating the movement of air with cooling, wherein that's not always the case in convection. What you seem to be doing is conflating how changes in air velocity can translate into changes in evaporative cooling. There is no evaporative cooling taking place on land in the way your position requires.

[esbo]

From a year and a half ago: http://www.scientifi...ect-temperature

 

Also, I get the sense that you are equating the movement of air with cooling, wherein that's not always the case in convection. What you seem to be doing is conflating how changes in air velocity can translate into changes in evaporative cooling. There is no evaporative cooling taking place on land in the way your position requires.

 

 

I am not talking about evaporation at all, so I am making no claims about evaporation.

Hence that part of your post is irrelevant to what I am talking about which is basically convection cooling.

 

Furthermore the article you quote says ""For most regions, the mean temperatures may not change by much because the warming and cooling effects may cancel out" note the "may cancel out" ie they don't seem to know what happens, they are speculating there.

 

Also it says " the turbines make it warmer at night and cooler during the day, generally speaking."

 

However this is not what the new article says, that says, ". Our results show a significant warming trend of up to 0.72 °C per decade, particularly at night-time"

 

That seems to indicate that there is warming during the night and the day but it is more pronounced at night. It makes no mention of cooling during the day, so we have two different studies which seem to contradict each other, one says cooling during the day but the other indicates some warming during the day as well, so which is correct?

 

Furthermore it seems to be speculation that mixing at night causes the warming at night, I say this because I expect they just have

temperature sensors on the ground. The article (or at least the part that is available without paying) actually mentions

satellite data so I assume this is a measure of ground temperature.

What we can see of the article is evidence of warming near the wind farms, however it is unclear if it is making a claim

as to how that warming occurred, it seems to be unclear if the article puts that down to mixing or whether that

is others who are speculating it is mixing.

All in all the studies seem to have 'gaps' and inconsistencies in them however the new study does show ground level warming

and it is ground level warming which affects the temperature we feel.

 

Also:- http://www.physicsfo...t=519049&page=2

Removing power from the wind slows it down, but it must not stop completely. For a wind turbine, the incident wind power is the wind velocity cubed times the frontal area of the turbine (HAWT) times the air density times 1/2. The maximum power a wind turbine can remove from the air is about 59% (Betz limit), because the air cannot be stagnant behind the blades.

 

 

So that respected person agrees wind turbines slow down the wind, and the OP who thought wind turbines might speed up the wind seems to have accepted he was wrong.

Edited May 2, 2012 by esbo

[Arete]

This simply goes to highlight the fact that having not read the article means you have an incomplete understanding of it.

[taken from http://www.atmos.albany.edu/facstaff/zhou/tmp/nclimate1505-aop.pdf]

 

That seems to indicate that there is warming during the night and the day but it is more pronounced at night. It makes no mention of cooling during the day, so we have two different studies which seem to contradict each other, one says cooling during the day but the other indicates some warming during the day as well, so which is correct?

 

"In contrast, the daytime LST shows strong interannual variations and no significant trends...Furthermore, continuous conduction

and convection help to create a well-mixed thick ABL in late afternoon, which exhibits a statically neutral profile where the vertical temperature gradients are approximately adiabatic."

 

There is no daytime effect because the atmosphere is homogenizing itself more during the day than at night.

 

Furthermore it seems to be speculation that mixing at night causes the warming at night, I say this because I expect they just have

temperature sensors on the ground. The article (or at least the part that is available without paying) actually mentions

satellite data so I assume this is a measure of ground temperature.

 

"We aggregate globally validated 1-km MODIS eight-day LST (ref. 18) and 16-day albedo19 into anoma- lies at pixels of 0:01 (1.1 km) resolution from 2003 to 2011 in winter (DecemberJanuaryFebruary, DJF) and summer (JuneJulyAugust , JJA). "

 

N.B. LST= land surface temperature.

 

it is unclear if it is making a claim as to how that warming occurred, it seems to be unclear if the article puts that down to mixing or whether that is others who are speculating it is mixing.

 

"The stronger wind speeds in JJA than DJF and at night-time than daytime (Supplementary Table S1) probably drive wind turbines to generate more electricity and turbulence and consequently result in the strongest warming effect at night-time in JJA. The nocturnal ABL is typically stable and much thinner than the daytime ABL and hence the turbine-enhanced vertical mixing produces a stronger night-time effect."

 

All in all the studies seem to have 'gaps' and inconsistencies in them however the new study does show ground level warming and it is ground level warming which affects the temperature we feel.

 

And you do realize that there is more to anthropogenic climate change than LST, right?

Edited May 2, 2012 by Arete

[iNow]

Also it says " the turbines make it warmer at night and cooler during the day, generally speaking."

 

However this is not what the new article says, that says, ". Our results show a significant warming trend of up to 0.72 °C per decade, particularly at night-time"

 

That seems to indicate that there is warming during the night and the day but it is more pronounced at night. It makes no mention of cooling during the day, so we have two different studies which seem to contradict each other, one says cooling during the day but the other indicates some warming during the day as well, so which is correct?

They are different studies discussing different locations. This is not an "either/or" issue. They are both accurate.

[esbo]

This simply goes to highlight the fact that having not read the article means you have an incomplete understanding of it.

[taken from "]http://www.atmos.alb...te1505-aop.pdf]

 

 

 

That link does not work

 

</h1>

<h1>Not Found

The requested URL /facstaff/zhou/tmp/nclimate1505-aop.pdf] was not found on this server.

 

 

Do you have a working link?

 

 

 

 

They are different studies discussing different locations. This is not an "either/or" issue. They are both accurate.

 

So what do they show?

 

Do they show daytime cooling or day time warming or do they show neither, or do they show little of value

can be conclude from the studies?

[John Cuthber]

Wind doesn't cool or warm the earth as a whole. It only moves heat from one part to another.

The mean temperature of the earth is going to depend on the heat transfer to and from the earth, not within the earth's boundary.

 

Interfering with wind patterns may have local effects, but it can't have global ones. It robs Peter to pay Paul ( or robs your deposit account to pay your current account as has been pointed out.)

The only thing that would make this thread sillier would be to tun it into a poll as if science were some sort of popularity contest or reality would change f enough people disagreed with it.

Edited May 2, 2012 by John Cuthber

[Arete]

 

 

Do you have a working link?

 

 

 

 

remove the extra bracket at the end.

[doG]

The article is garbled nonsense but wind farms do cause warming because they slow down the circulating air which cools the earth.

That is obvious they take energy from the cooling currents and slow them so they cool the earth less. Simples.

Your understanding of the big picture appears to be incredibly lacking.

 

Wind farms merely convert energy from one form to another. They do not add to the total heat of the system, in this case the system that is Earth's environment. There is no net increase in heat, i.e. molecular motion. They do not impede any radiant processes that might reduce heat. They could interfere with the natural movement of energy from place to place but even that does not contribute to any warming of the system as a whole.

 

Can you provide any peer reviewed material to support your assertion?

[esbo]

Your understanding of the big picture appears to be incredibly lacking.

 

Wind farms merely convert energy from one form to another. They do not add to the total heat of the system, in this case the system that is Earth's environment. There is no net increase in heat, i.e. molecular motion. They do not impede any radiant processes that might reduce heat. They could interfere with the natural movement of energy from place to place but even that does not contribute to any warming of the system as a whole.

 

Can you provide any peer reviewed material to support your assertion?

 

Your understanding of my post is rather lacking.

 

I never claimed wind farms added additional energy just that they warmed the surface of the earth.

Two entirely different things.

So you are refuting an argument I never made.

 

As they slow the convection process they slow the rate at which which heat can convert into the upper atmosphere and hence

radiate out into out space away from the planet.

 

Do you have any peer reviewed evidence to show I am incorrect?

 

Can you site any experiments which show I am incorrect?

 

Do you accept wind turbines slow the wind?

[doG]

Your understanding of my post is rather lacking.

 

I never claimed wind farms added additional energy just that they warmed the surface of the earth.

Two entirely different things.

Thank you for proving my point. In order to warm anything you have to add energy. Your assertion that wind farms cause global warming is the implication that wind farms add energy to the Earth's environment.

[Arete]

Do you have any peer reviewed evidence to show I am incorrect?

 

[ewmon]

In order to warm anything you have to add energy.

Well...

 

Can we agree that energy is neither created nor destroyed, but converted from one form to another?

 

By definition, wind farms convert some of the wind's kinetic energy into electrical energy. In doing so, wind farms might convert some of the wind's kinetic energy into thermal energy, or mix layers of air with different thermal energies, etc. There's even the [very distant] possibility that a wind farm could act like a vortex tube and separate air into colder air and warmer air.

[esbo]

 

 

Is that you tube video peer reviewed? Of course just because something is peer reviewed does not mean it's correct.

 

 

5 Published research (peer-reviewed) is more credible than the alternative. But peer-review is not perfect.

 

Thank you for proving my point. In order to warm anything you have to add energy. Your assertion that wind farms cause global warming is the implication that wind farms add energy to the Earth's environment.

 

So how does CO2 cause global warming?

Is it adding energy?

If so how?

[doG]

Your understanding of my post is rather lacking.I never claimed wind farms added additional energy just that they warmed the surface of the earth.

 

 

Well...Can we agree that energy is neither created nor destroyed, but converted from one form to another?

 

By definition, wind farms convert some of the wind's kinetic energy into electrical energy. In doing so, wind farms might convert some of the wind's kinetic energy into thermal energy, or mix layers of air with different thermal energies, etc. There's even the [very distant] possibility that a wind farm could act like a vortex tube and separate air into colder air and warmer air.

I'm well aware of that ewmon but esbo has asserted that wind farms CAUSE global warming. This implies that wind farms add heat to the energy that is in the system already in order to cause warming. In reality, wind farms only take energy that is already present in the environment and convert it to other forms within the same environment. There is no net increase in energy and therefore no warming as esbo has asserted.

 

In order to cause global warming. i.e. in order to heat the Earth's environment as a whole, you must add energy to the system as a whole or impede the normal radiation of energy from that system. Wind farms do neither.

[esbo]

also

http://www.smartgridnews.com/artman/publish/Technologies_DG_Renewables/Much-ado-about-nothing-Wind-farms-global-warming-4754.html

 

In a Q&A related to the study, Zhou said "Overall, the warming effect reported in this study is local and is small compared to the strong background year-to-year land surface temperature changes. Very likely, the wind turbines do not create a net warming of the air and instead only redistribute the air’s heat near the surface (the turbine itself does not generate any heat), which is fundamentally different from the large-scale warming effect caused by increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases due to the burning of fossil fuels."

 

So it seem he is unsure what is happen "very likely" that sounds like speculation to me, ie he has a theory of what is happening but

has not confirm it experimentally.

 

 

Also he seems to think that only net warming matters, however what is important for life on earth and sea levels is the temperature

on the surface. Warm air over ice will melt the ice will melt the ice even if there is cooler air above the warm air.

 

Indeed in the atmosphere it can be 40 degrees hotter than on the surface but that is not a big deal for us on the surface

as the higher temperature are high up a long way away from us.

What matters to us it the temperature at the surface where we live.

 

I'm well aware of that ewmon but esbo has asserted that wind farms CAUSE global warming. This implies that wind farms add heat to the energy that is in the system already in order to cause warming. In reality, wind farms only take energy that is already present in the environment and convert it to other forms within the same environment. There is no net increase in energy and therefore no warming as esbo has asserted.

 

In order to cause global warming. i.e. in order to heat the Earth's environment as a whole, you must add energy to the system as a whole or impede the normal radiation of energy from that system. Wind farms do neither.

 

 

You can cause warming without adding extra heat if you prevent the existing heat from escaping.

 

total heat = heat in - heat out.

 

 

You do not have to add extra heat to get warming if you reduce the heat going out