A study examines how agriculture influences mortality due to poor air quality in the United States.
Image credit: Jason D. Hill.
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Communicated by Stephen H. Schneider, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, September 19, 2004 (received for review April 16, 2004)
Abstract
Large-scale use of wind power can alter local and global climate by extracting kinetic energy and altering turbulent transport in the atmospheric boundary layer. We report climate-model simulations that address the possible climatic impacts of wind power at regional to global scales by using two general circulation models and several parameterizations of the interaction of wind turbines with the boundary layer. We find that very large amounts of wind power can produce nonnegligible climatic change at continental scales. Although large-scale effects are observed, wind power has a negligible effect on global-mean surface temperature, and it would deliver enormous global benefits by reducing emissions of CO2 and air pollutants. Our results may enable a comparison between the climate impacts due to wind power and the reduction in climatic impacts achieved by the substitution of wind for fossil fuels.
Footnotes
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↵ † To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: keith{at}ucalgary.ca.
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Author contributions: D.W.K., D.H.L., P.J.R., and S.P. designed the experiments; D.W.K., J.F.D., S.L.M., and P.J.R. did the modeling; D.W.K. and J.F.D. analyzed data; and D.W.K., J.F.D., D.C.D., D.H.L., S.L.M., S.P., and P.J.R. interpreted results and wrote the paper
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Abbreviations: NCAR, National Center for Atmospheric Research; GFDL, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.
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↵ ** The assumptions about time discounting and the impulse-response carbon-cycle model are the same as those that were used in estimating Global Warming Potentials (23, 24).
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Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.
- Copyright © 2004, The National Academy of Sciences
The influence of large-scale wind power on global climate
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- Environmental Sciences
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