B Are wind farms stealing the cooling capacity of the wind?

[queriees]

Hi, this is a
atmospheric physics question.When the sun heats up the ground (dark granite slab/asphalt), makes a thermal column of air rise, gradually accumulating into a higher pressure area, and then wind, when it moves from higher pressure to a lower pressure area, it is distributing the heat energy from the sun.

then there's Coriolus.

On a miniature scale (simplified model for my itty little brain to picture)... there's a PIPING hot bowl of soup that I want to dig into...so I take a soup spoon of hot soup and I blow across it to speed up the air molecules that move along the surface and around the sides of the spoon to dissipate the energy of the soup within it so I can drink it sooner. Wind = cooling.

When we have aeolian wind farms... more and more of them...

If I don't blow on my spoonful of soup, it stays hotter longer. The heat STAYS there.

If the wind doesn't blow because we've taken the energy OUT by farming it, then the heat accumulates MORE locally. Is this not right?Like an oven...versus a convection oven...

Like a radiator (that you can't cover), versus a heat fan.

If you keep accumulating heat in an open area, and you add fuel (like a forest or tinder), and you give it a source of ignition...then doesn't that complete the heat triangle?

Haven't we been seeing more forest fires globally? Maybe it has to do with all the aeolian wind farms?

If you install a waterwheel in a river course, the water will no longer travel as far, once you remove the energy/force to power whatever you need to do.

If you remove the wind power from the air, won't the air lose some of its distance.

If the wind is weakening, won't the earth heat up?

 

[mfb]

A combination of warm and cold areas emits more radiation than a more uniform distribution. Slowing wind would lower the overall average temperature a little bit, in principle, the opposite of what you expect.

In practice this is completely negligible because wind farms only use a tiny fraction of the wind energy, and only close to the surface - the same energy would be dissipated elsewhere (and would be converted to heat) if we wouldn't capture it.

 

[sophiecentaur]

If the wind is weakening, won't the earth heat up?

Sounds a reasonable idea but what numbers are involved?

They space the turbines on a wind farm far enough apart to ensure that they are not significantly affected by each other. There are many different figures quoted (search "wind turbine soacing") but I got the impression that, for instance, the spacing between 3MW turbines would need to be 400m. Ignoring the actual efficiency of the turbines, you'd have to compare the 3MW of electrical power out with the 160MW of incident solar power. The heat loss from the ground would be due to radiation and wind convection cooling but the difference in cooling would be 3/160 =2%. That figure would be only in the near locality of the farm. Away from the 200m perimeter you'd lose even less. Most of the land isn't occupied by wind farms.

 

[Rive]

Are wind farms stealing the cooling capacity of the wind?

Well, right now it's suspected to be the other way. With mixing up the air close and further away to the surface they are actually suspected to increase the evaporation.
That means moisture loss close to and in the soil.
More 'cooling' (of this kind) means that, actually.

 

[sophiecentaur]

It does make sense that laminar flow over the ground would increase the water loss compared with a lot of ground clutter and also reduce the power loss in the wind.
If we're considering the economics of all this, the rough calculations of the overall values of the powers involved then the numbers suggest it's not a very relevant concern. How could you evaluate the economic effect of this?