Regional climate model simulations indicate limited climatic impacts by operational and planned European wind farms

Robert Vautard 1 Françoise Thais 2 Isabelle Tobin 1 Francois-Marie Breon 1 Jean-Guy Devezeaux de Lavergne 2 Augustin Colette 3 Pascal Yiou 1 Paolo Michele Ruti 4, 5
1 LSCE - Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement [Gif-sur-Yvette]
2 ITESE - Institut de Technico-Economie des Systèmes Energétiques
3 INERIS - Institut National de l'Environnement Industriel et des Risques
4 ENEA - Agenzia Nazionale per le nuove Tecnologie, l’energia e lo sviluppo economico sostenibile
5 ENEA - Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development
Abstract : The rapid development of wind energy has raised concerns about environmental impacts. Temperature changes are found in the vicinity of wind farms and previous simulations have suggested that large-scale wind farms could alter regional climate. However, assessments of the effects of realistic wind power development scenarios at the scale of a continent are missing. Here we simulate the impacts of current and near-future wind energy production according to European Union energy and climate policies. We use a regional climate model describing the interactions between turbines and the atmosphere, and find limited impacts. A statistically significant signal is only found in winter, with changes within ±0.3 °C and within 0–5% for precipitation. It results from the combination of local wind farm effects and changes due to a weak, but robust, anticyclonic-induced circulation over Europe. However, the impacts remain much weaker than the natural climate interannual variability and changes expected from greenhouse gas emissions.
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Robert Vautard, Françoise Thais, Isabelle Tobin, Francois-Marie Breon, Jean-Guy Devezeaux de Lavergne, et al.. Regional climate model simulations indicate limited climatic impacts by operational and planned European wind farms. Nature Communications, Nature Publishing Group, 2014, 5, pp.3196. ⟨10.1038/ncomms4196⟩. ⟨ineris-01710142⟩

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