Will so called wind farms be a catalyst for climate change?

Question

There has always been a question in my mind when it come to wind generated energy. If for example there are a series of wind turbines across say Europe all placed in the various countries all positioned to catch the prevailing wind. That is the wind comes into contact will the first series of wind powered turbines and moves on to the next and so on into the various countries as it passes on its natural route. Will the wind be weaker when it meets the last series of wind turbines? Given that some of the energy of the wind has been used on those wind turbines which first in the line of the wind

Will the introduction of so called wind farms be a catalyst for climate change given that cloud formations are driven by the prevailing winds. If there is a reduction of wind speed it is possible that precipitation could occur in different location than it did before the introduction of wind farms. If the strength of the wind is reduced will it be diverted form its natural course.

Answer 1

I actually talked about this with a meteorology professor. Several schools are studying this right now (such as Texas Tech).

My professor's personal opinion was the amount of momentum the wind turbines take from the atmospheric boundary layer (near the ground) is so small compared to the momentum of the atmosphere that they would have little or no affect.

Of course, and topography variations affect the weather on a day-to-day basis, so it could mess with forecasting for awhile until the forecasters got used to them being there.

Answer 2

This might have a major impact but not in the way you think. The amount of energy extracted is very very small so there will be no down-wind effect difference. However, the change from oil or other fuel based electrical production would get smaller as more wind turbines were used. If done in large enough numbers, this could have a significant impact upon the green house gases and could help from changing the climate.

Answer 3

You do have a valid point that obstacles can alter and affect wind, but I highly highly doubt wind farms could ever possibly have the durastic effect that you describe here. First of all, the wind does not only travel along the ground where the turbines are but also up higher, up above the turbines, the wind is unobstructed and still flows on just as strongly as before. Also, the wind that is affected by each turbine is very small, and seeing as it would take an outrageous number of turbines to have any affect on slowing or diverting the wind, it is very unlikely. Something like a mountain that is large, tall, and will not move can affect the wind, but something as small as a wind farm will not.
Not that we're saved.
We don't need wind farms to change the wind to affect the climate.
Trust me, global warming is doing a fantastic job of that already. It certainly won't need any help.

Answer 4

As others have said, the effect is so small as to be insignificant. That energy was going to be dissipated anyway, for the most part, as the wind blows past other obstacles.

But the more interesting question is what the effects are.

In the temperate to polar latitudes, wind flows mostly parallel to isobars (lines of equal pressure). The pressure tends to make it flow across those lines, from high pressure to low. But the Coriolis effect creates a component parallel to the isobars, which increases as long as wind is flowing down the pressure gradient. When the wind parallel to the isobars is fast enough that the Coriolis effect on it balances out the pressure gradient, that's a stable situation called the geostrophic wind. Now put in some friction: the actual wind speed becomes less than the geostropic wind, so more air flows down the pressure gradient.

Counterintuitive as it is, friction tends to allow the type of flow that dissipates pressure gradients. So with more wind farms, heat will flow a tiny bit more readily from equator to poles.

The other effect is that drag between wind and ground transfers momentum between earth and atmosphere. That momentum is what determines the relative amount of trade-wind latitudes and prevailing-westerlies latitudes. There's enough of each so that the total eastward drag equals the total westward drag (otherwise there would be a net force one way or the other, which would mean more wind one way or the other). So windmills in either zone will tend to mean that it takes less of that zone to have as much total drag as the other zone.

There are more details, but that's enough for one reply.

Answer 5

Beyond the fact that you used the word catalyst in a very bad context, my response would be the following:

Today wedo not do much with the energy of the wind so there is very little impact on harnessing it.
Since the atmosphere goes higher than the top of windfarms there is certainly no impact on the mechanic of the wind.

In the universe nothing is lost nothing is created everything is transformed so energy flows from one place to another and harnessing wind 7 meter above the ground won't make any arm.

Answer 6

Wind will always be there in abundance...think! The world had very few tall structure before the cheap manufacturing of steel in the later 1800s, yet the building of huge cities and structure doesn't seem to slow down wind (in fact it channels wind so some places are more windy)....also, the area between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains had very few trees before pioneering days (and laws requiring the planting of trees such as the homestead Act of 1860), yet even with abundant tree planting and growth, there is plenty of wind on the great plains. So the number and size of windmill generators would have to be astronomical to have any real measureable effect on other energy producing windmills.

Answer 7

The amount of energy diverted or captured is tiny, but it is there, however this would have no major change in climate related to it because wind farms only can reach wind maybe 100 ft up, and clouds are almost always higher up then that.

Answer 8

Everything will have an impact, but in the case of wind farm this effect is negligible. It is just the same as having some shallow mountains that disrupt the wind a little.

Answer 9

no, wind farms are merely a surface feature taking up a negligible area of the entire atmosphere in which the winds work, in any case the effects of deforestation probably counter act it.

Answer 10

The amount of energy extracted by the wind machines is miniscule and would have essentially no effect