Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumWindfarms generate microclimates with uncertain effects on peatland carbon store
revious studies by other researchers have established that wind farms do create localised microclimates, with slightly different temperatures and levels of humidity caused by the action of the turbine blades. The new study, published today in the journal Environmental Research Letters, is the first to measure the effect on peatland, where the majority of Scottish wind farms are located.
Researchers from the University of Glasgow, the National Centre for Atmospheric Science, Lancaster University, Leeds University and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology placed a grid of 100 temperature and humidity sensors around wind turbines at ScottishPower Renewables Black Law Wind Farm in North Lanarkshire. For six months, they took readings from the air every five minutes and from the surface and soil every 30 minutes, including during a period when the turbines were switched off for maintenance.
They found that, when the turbines were operational at night, they raised the air temperature around the turbine by nearly 0.2°C and fractionally increased the absolute humidity. The turbines also increased the variability in air, surface and soil temperature throughout each 24-hour cycle. During the period when the turbines were inactive, the climate effects were absent.
http://www.myscience.org.uk/news/2016/windfarms_generate_microclimates_with_uncertain_effects_on_peatland_carbon_store-2016-glasgow
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Zardoz speaks to you.
LiberalArkie
(15,719 posts)Does concrete or buildings or refineries change the local climate?
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Look at this one's profile. "An energy voter"
LiberalArkie
(15,719 posts)so do buildings and trucks. That is why the whole discussion about human caused climate change. Sure if humans did not exist there would still be climate change from volcanos and floods etc, but humans cause most of the change just by what we do and do not do. It the human species and slow down the rate at which it changes the climate maybe that will offset the natural occurring climate change.
sue4e3
(731 posts)this was just a study on an effect of wind farms on thier surroundings. My take on this study was not that wind farms are bad just something else we need to know