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Wind Power and Climate Change .

I am building this web site as a resource for those interested in the effects of wind power on global and local climate. I welcome suggestions about materials that should be placed on the site. If there is sufficient interest I may grow this into an annotated bibliography on the topic. For a short overview of how I think about the climatic effects of extracting wind power, look here.

-David Keith

 

Work in which I have been involved

66. David W. Keith, Joseph F. DeCarolis, David C. Denkenberger, Donald H. Lenschow, Sergey L. Malyshev, Stephen Pacala and Philip J. Rasch (2004). The influence of large-scale wind-power on global climate. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 101, p. 16115-16120. (PDF)

 

Other peoples work

Somnath Baidya Roy, Steve Pacala and Robert L. Walko (2004) Can Large Windfarms Affect Local Meteorology? J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos. VOL. 109, D19101. Available on line at: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2004/2004JD004763.shtml.

This analysis grew out of the same collaborative research effort that produced the PNAS paper. That paper uses a mesoscale model to examine the role of turbulence generated by the turbines on the boundary layer. The results are relevant to assessing local impacts and to the 'atmospheric efficiency,' the most important unknown in the PNAS paper.

 

Pim Rooijmans (2004). Impact of a large-scale offshore wind farm on meteorology: Numerical simulations with a mesoscale circulation model. Masters thesis, Utrecht University , Utrecht , The Netherlands. Available here.

The MM5 mesoscale model was used to study the influence of a 9000 km2 off-shore wind farm in the North Sea on regional climate. The authors found significant effects including reduced winds along the coast and changes in cloud cover and precipitation.