Studies are marvellous things. Almost seven years ago a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience led to this striking Guardian headline: “Global warming will weaken wind power, study predicts”. The abstract of the study was a little more nuanced, concluding that climate change and a warming planet would result in “decreases in wind power across the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes and increases across the tropics and Southern Hemisphere, with substantial regional variations.”
The Guardian was concerned (but not sufficiently so to stop campaigning for more windfarms):
The research is the first global study to project the impact of temperature rises on wind energy and found big changes by the end of the century in many of the places hosting large numbers of turbines.
Wind farms have grown more than fivefold in the last decade and plunging costs have made them a key way of reducing carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning. But in the central US, for example, the power of the wind could fall by nearly a fifth…
…It does mean such changes need to be taken into account in planning future wind farms, he said, and also in assessing how much wind farms overall can cut global emissions.
Ironically, perhaps:
The biggest fall was in Japan, where wind farm building is just beginning to accelerate, with wind energy projected to fall by 58kW, or about 10%. The central US was second with 49kW but because the average current winds are generally weaker than in Japan, this represents a larger 17% drop. The UK is anticipated to fall by 36kW, or 5%.
Fast forward almost seven years and – phew! – we have a new and exciting headline: “Global heating could raise potential for offshore wind power, study says”; and an even more exciting sub-heading: “Heating of 4C could increase potential offshore wind energy by average of 9% by end of century, research suggests”.
This time the research (titled “Increases of Offshore Wind Potential in a Warming World”) is published in Geophysical Research Letters, here. The “Plain language summary” is music to the ears of wind farm developers:
Wind energy is key to achieving global carbon neutrality. While onshore wind has been extensively studied, offshore wind energy (OWE) projections have received less attention. Climate models, particularly those from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phases 5 and 6 (CMIP5/6), have underestimated changes in OWE in past decades. Our study addresses this by using a state-of-the-art reanalysis, ERA5, to correct these underestimations in CMIP6 models and project future changes in offshore wind power density (WPD) in a warming world. We discover that global offshore WPD is expected to rise throughout the 21st century. By the end of the century, we project an increase in offshore WPD by 3.8%–18.3% under various emission scenarios. Specifically, with global warming of 4°C (and 2°C), we expect increases of 8.9%–9.2% (and 0.2%–2.2%) compared to that at a 1.5°C warming level. Europe stands out under 4°C global warming, with the largest projected increase in offshore WPD (26%). This …highlights the growing importance of offshore wind in our energy mix and underscores the need for improved modeling to guide investments and policies.
Isn’t that great? In less than seven years Europe and North America go from being net losers to big winners:
Overall, in regions with the higher current installations, the most substantial increase in offshore WPD is expected in Europe as global warming intensifies, although noteworthy increases are also evident in NA.
By happy coincidence, this is where so many new wind farms are planned. Happily too:
…Notably, the regions covering the East China Sea, the Sea of Japan, and the Bay of Bengal, which exhibited decreasing trends, are projected to accelerate…
As so often seems to be the case, however:
More research is needed to understand the impact of extreme wind events and to map the changes in wind energy at a higher resolution.
Send more money – we’re getting there! And isn’t it wonderful that the science is so settled.
Climate Scepticism 
Hi Mark
That Graun article doesn’t pass the sniff test.
Foundation for my scepticism:
“The amount of power that can be harvested from wind depends on the size of the turbine and the length of its blades. The output is proportional to the dimensions of the rotor and to the cube of the wind speed. Theoretically, when wind speed doubles, the wind power potential increases by a factor of eight.”
https://www.irena.org/Energy-Transition/Technology/Wind-energy#:~:text=The%20amount%20of%20power%20that,by%20a%20factor%20of%20eight.
Gruan exhibit A:
“But in the central US, for example, the power of the wind could fall by nearly a fifth.”
By a fifth? 20%. Sounds scary. But wait, it takes ‘only’ a 7.17% drop in wind speed to produce a 20% drop in its power. (0.9283^3 = 0.80).
A 7.17% drop in wind speed would hardly work as clickbait.
Gruan exhibit B:
“The biggest fall was in Japan …with wind energy projected to fall by 58kW…”
But fall from what, by 58kW?
“…. or about 10%” Ah, a wind power %. 0.965^3 = 0.8986 (that’s nearly 90%). So a wind speed drop of 3.5% reduces power output by 10%. That’ll sure ruffle a few feathers after the next tornado passes by.
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“That’ll sure ruffle a few feathers after the next tornado passes by.”
Ooops, I forgot we’d been blown away from the US to Japan. So the feathers would be ruffled after a typhoon passed by.
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Joe P, thanks for that.
I drew attention to these studies for the simple reason that worrying about how much power will be produced by wind turbines if the world has warmed by 4C (unlikely in anything but the extremely long run) strikes me as utterly fatuous. We are told that we need wind turbines and renewable energy generally in order to reduce CO2 emissions in order to prevent the world from over-heating. And here we are worrying about how much energy we will get from wind turbines if the world has warmed by 4C. If that has happened, then the plan has failed, so either this is an admission that renewable energy won’t achieve its objective, or it’s a puff piece on behalf of the renewables industry. Either way, it feels like a new low in journalistic standards at the Guardian.
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Via the ever-useful numberwatch via archive.org:
Dutch Windmills At Risk From Climate Change
The date? 2005. (It’s good to know that some links have survived that long.)
Meanwhile, when it talks of kW, that is a unit of power, but I think that needs a unit of area as well.
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“Either way, it feels like a new low in journalistic standards at the Guardian.”
For the Graun, and, journalists paid by the word, peak low will only be a brief period before it’s inevitably surpassed. Methinks prizes are offered for achieving it.
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Mark,
They say that we conspiracy theorists are irrational because are are able to entertain conspiracies that are mutually contradictory. They call it ‘kettle logic’ after an anecdote told by Freud concerning a man who gave two contradictory excuses for not returning a borrowed kettle.
So what do we have to call this contradictory nonsense then? Should it be ‘pot logic’?
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“Super typhoon strikes China’s Hainan, devastates wind farm
At least six coastal wind turbines were damaged at a wind farm under expansion”
https://www.upstreamonline.com/safety/super-typhoon-strikes-china-s-hainan-devastates-wind-farm/2-1-1706110
Super Typhoon Yagi, the most potent storm to hit Asia this year, unleashed its fury upon China’s southernmost Hainan province on Friday, damaging a major wind farm.…
Behind a paywall, but you get the gist. It does cast doubt on the idea that relying on wind energy is a good idea if – as some models suggest – the climate is going to see more fierce storms and less predictable weather.
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Mark: WUWT has a post about that typhoon, including some drone footage of the damage:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/09/09/wind-turbines-destroyed-by-typhoon-yagi/
The turbines look to be relatively large, ie modern, judging by the people standing by some wreckage.
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2001:
What happened next? (Data from BEA.gov)
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