Plastering the landscape with wind turbines to produce renewable energy could lead to regional drought.
Germany has so far installed over 30,000 wind turbines, which is about 1 every 11 sq. km. Plans are calling for doubling or even tripling wind power capacity. [emphasis, links added]
But this may be detrimental as new studies show that wind farms are altering local climates, and thus may be having an effect on global climate and contributing to regional droughts.
Northern Germany, for example, has a high concertation of wind turbines and has seen an unusual dry spell since 2019. Fortunately, recent rains have alleviated these drought conditions.
Alarmist climate scientists, of course, blamed rising CO2 emissions for the North German drought.
Yet, a recent paper by Wang et al (2023) shows that wind farms reduce regional soil moisture, thus confirming earlier model simulations of wind-park-made climate change, e.g. by Zhou et al (2013).
German online SciFi site here reports in-depth on the topic. “Climate change: Wind farms cause drought and dryness – Evidence is mounting [New study]“.
The site presents one chart depicting the wind energy installation concentration in Germany:
Next, we look at a chart depicting the ground moisture across Germany (2019). The left side shows the moisture anomaly down to a soil depth of 25 cm while the right chart shows moisture anomaly down to a depth of 1.8 meters.
“Is it a coincidence that the soils are driest where most wind turbines are located?”, SciFi wonders.
Mounting Evidence Of A Link Between Drought And Wind Parks
In the article, SciFi examines a number of published research papers on the subject and summarizes:
As a conclusion, it can be said that it is certain that wind farms change the local climate. Very large wind farms or many wind farms also have an effect on the global climate. The results are mostly based on simulation models, whereby the study by Zhou et al. (2013), which was able to draw on comparative data, confirms the results found in the simulation models.
The new study by Wang et al. (2023), which we discussed today, confirms the model calculations using real data obtained from a Chinese wind farm and shows for the first time that soil moisture is reduced by wind farms not only downwind but also upwind.
Wind farms thus contribute significantly to the drying out of soils, and to drought.”
Hat-tip: EIKE.
Read more at No Tricks Zone
I’ve got a story to tell.
Each winter, I operate a large industrial fan in my shed to dry newly split fire wood. Guess what? That wood dries out rather quickly, even in winter, so the lesson is?
Wind (moving air) will dry things out.
Here’s another hint: In many bathrooms today, there hand dryers that blow air over our wet hands. Again, we all know what happens – the skin on our hands dries !!
Yep, wind turbines sprout where the wind blows. Texas, for example.
What did they think would happen? They are slowing the flow and creating drag on the atmosphere. Water is being evaporated by the increase in temperature from the slowed winds. Someone else gets the water. This is 7th grade science back in the 1970’s. Only now are the patterns showing point of original flow and how it has been diverted.