Alarmists claim that over the past century, CO2 has caused temperatures to warm by about 0.7 degrees. A new study shows that wind farms cause ten times as much warming as CO2.
Nature Climate Change (2012) doi:10.1038/nclimate1505
Received 02 February 2012 Accepted 28 March 2012 Published online 29 April 2012The wind industry in the United States has experienced a remarkably rapid expansion of capacity in recent years and this fast growth is expected to continue in the future1, 2, 3. While converting wind’s kinetic energy into electricity, wind turbines modify surface–atmosphere exchanges and the transfer of energy, momentum, mass and moisture within the atmosphere4, 5, 6. These changes, if spatially large enough, may have noticeable impacts on local to regional weather and climate. Here we present observational evidence for such impacts based on analyses of satellite data for the period of 2003–2011 over a region in west-central Texas, where four of the world’s largest wind farms are located7. Our results show a significant warming trend of up to 0.72?°C per decade, particularly at night-time, over wind farms relative to nearby non-wind-farm regions. We attribute this warming primarily to wind farms as its spatial pattern and magnitude couples very well with the geographic distribution of wind turbines
Impacts of wind farms on land surface temperature : Nature Climate Change : Nature Publishing Group
h/t to suyts
How can a wind farm create any “trend” in temps???
Because it slows down the wind and prevents cooling.
nope…..that’s a one time event, and is constant after that
They are saying the longer the wind farm sits there, the warmer it gets…..a trend
Just like CO2.
AH HA, found it, they are saying the trend comes from adding more windmills…..
“found that over a decade the local temperature went up by almost 1C as more turbines are built”
now this is something that i can “believe”
Haven’t read the article yet… but:
With the turbines turning wind energy into mechanical energy, a fair portion of that energy is going to be given back off by the turbine as heat (friction, losses in the generator windings, etc.) would it not?
My hotair comment on this story:
Windmils and solar cells are a joke. A cover for the bs artists (Chicken Littles) anti-energy agenda, seriously anti-energy. Their cap & trade scheme, which passed in the House in ’09, would have mandated 83% CO2 cuts by 2050. Talk about taking a wrecking ball to civilization. Look at Holdren quote below. That was the goal.
“A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States… [we] must design a stable, low-consumption economy in which there is a much more equitable distribution of wealth.” -John Holdren (1973), Obama’s Science Czar
83% cuts, back to 1867 per capital CO2 use levels. Forget steel, go back to stone tools. No fire, though. That’ll make it fun!
Stewart Brand of the Whole Earth Catalogue put their goal this way, “We have wished, we ecofreaks, for a disaster… to bomb us into the stone age, where we might live like [American] Indians…”
Margaret Sanger would be proud of Holdren.
The word “Luddite” should have Holdren’s picture next to it in the dictionary.
You know what this means? This means there’s a good chance NCDC/GISS will be relocating any land based thermometers that aren’t already near or on wind farms to keep the warming trend alive. :-{)
I disagree. This is junk science.
Can’t break the law of conservation of energy.
Let me clarify. The science is the science. The interpretation of the results in the big picture of the AGW debate is where junk might creep in.
If course it’s Junk science. Nothing in the research mentioned global warming. Might as well say a new road causes warming;
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0430/Don-t-believe-the-headlines.-Wind-farms-do-not-cause-global-warming
Paved roads do cause warming, and has had a serious effect on the land temperature record.
Of course roads cause localised warming, just as these turbines do. Soon we will get skeptics claiming that there is global warming, humans are responsible but it is wind turbines that are doing it.
You are a waste of time.
Surely there is more heating as they explode during any gale as seen on many youtube videos