Tidal heights changes caused by 18.61 years cycle of lunar 'wobbles'

[Chiara’s slave]

I don't think that the scattering of wind pumps, windmills and modestly-sized sailing craft begins to compare with the equipment on wind farms either in size or number. I wish you luck with your plan to fuel Britain with reeds but I won't be investing in it myself.

Little sister should be a government adviser. It’s the sort of nonsense they come up with. The difference is that I don’t think our forumite is serious.

 

[franksingleton]

The problem is Frankie that some key board warriors see things in black and white. I introduced a simple question, what did the power in the wind do downstream of it before we extracted terrawatts. Nothing judgemental, just a simple question. Nothing about climate change!
Surely a simple question for a scientist such as yourself to answer? You are a scientist arent you?

I am not clear what you are wanting and did try to respond. However, the following is the abstract of a paper in Nature last year.

Long-term weather and climate observatories can be affected by the changing environments in their vicinity, such as the growth of urban areas or changing vegetation. Wind plants can also impact local atmospheric conditions through their wakes, characterized by reduced wind speed and increased turbulence. We explore the extent to which the wind plants near an atmospheric measurement site in the central United States have affected their long-term measurements. Both direct observations and mesoscale numerical weather prediction simulations demonstrate how the wind plants induce a wind deficit aloft, especially in stable conditions, and a wind speed acceleration near the surface, which extend ∼30∼30 km downwind of the wind plant. Turbulence kinetic energy is significantly enhanced within the wind plant wake in stable conditions, with near-surface observations seeing an increase of more than 30% a few kilometers downwind of the plants.

See Wind plants can impact long-term local atmospheric conditions - Scientific Reports

 

[Beneteau381]

Thank

I am not clear what you are wanting and did try to respond. However, the following is the abstract of a paper in Nature last year.

See Wind plants can impact long-term local atmospheric conditions - Scientific Reports

Thank you, you finally took me seriously, and obviously understood what I was asking, although trying to tie my question in with climate change was a bit keyboard warriorish!
So windfarms do affect existing wind flows, quite dramatically in some cases. So lets go down the butterfly flapping its wings in Japan effect and try to figure out is some of the bizarre weather patterns we are sstarting to notice world wide being caused by these?

 

[franksingleton]

Thank

Thank you, you finally took me seriously, and obviously understood what I was asking, although trying to tie my question in with climate change was a bit keyboard warriorish!
So windfarms do affect existing wind flows, quite dramatically in some cases. So lets go down the butterfly flapping its wings in Japan effect and try to figure out is somet of the bizarre weather patterns we are sstarting to notice world wide being caused by these?

As ever, a distorted view. Naturally, I usually regard such questions as having a climate change background and I try to be careful in my answers. Clearly, I was right. Your question was “what did the power in the wind do happens to the wind do downstream of it before we extract terra watts ….” I am still not really clear what you meant to ask. Clearly, you had effects on climate in mind.

In quoting the Lorenz hypothetical butterfly question you, like many others, do not know what he was saying Or why he was saying it. Don’t take my word for it, try Understanding the Butterfly Effect. You are falling into the same trap as many who have no understanding of fluid dynamics. Lorenz realised then what numerical Westher modellers do nowadays when they run model ensembles. They run their models from slightly different starting points. However these are differences on scales of model grid lengths, at least 10 km for global models now and considerably greater in 1972. Climate models are also run as ensembles.

Obviously, and nobody would deny it, any obstruction to the atmosphere will affect the flow of air. In the case of wind farms, this is likely to be a few 10s of kilometres. No wind farm or a collection of wind farms is likely to have any global effect.

If you want to ask a question about climate, then do so but please do not pretend otherwise.

 

[Beneteau381]

Ah, classic mistake of thinking you know what I am thinking , nothing to do with climate change in the least

 

[boomerangben]

As I understand it, wind is generated by rising air, or rather temperature differentials across areas of the planet where surface radiation varies. Hence the ITCZ, Hadley cells etc. this causes phenomena such as the trade winds and ultimately the depressions and high pressure systems that drive the wind. If that is how wind is generated, what sort of numbers in terms of energy are we talking about? I would imagine that the energy required to generate wind on that scale is enormous compared with the energy we extract from wind turbines. Therefore can wind turbines have a significant or even measurable effect on weather systems? I doubt very much. Land, trees, cities all have a dramatic effect on wind speed, direction and turbulence. Do they change weather patterns. Perhaps on a continental scale and this is further complicated by they themselves being a factor (very significant one) in how much heat is radiated from the surface into the air.
So I doubt very much wind turbines would have a measurable effect on large scale weather systems. Any changes are much more likely to be driven by changes in heat radiation distribution from the surface of the planet
I could however imagine a wind farm being responsible for created local effects such as creating enough turbulence to create the formation of cumulus clouds and perhaps small thunderstorms. (I am not conscious though of ever seeing a line of cumulus down wind of a wind farm) But since the can also be achieved by ploughing a field, I suspect the weather is still driven by what it has always been driven by and wind farms have merely scraped a tiny, insignificant amount of energy from the atmosphere.
In other words, energy transfer due to wind speed and direction changes is tiny compared with energy transfer due surface radiation changes.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Talk of the butterfly effect is somewhat diluted by the sledgehammer effect of changing the composition of the atmosphere.

 

[franksingleton]

Ah, classic mistake of thinking you know what I am thinking , nothing to do with climate change in the least

As I said, you clearly had climate in mind.

 

[Beneteau381]

As I said, you clearly had climate in mind.

You are determined to have row arent you? Isnt that sort of behaviour frowned upon here?

 

[franksingleton]

As I understand it, wind is generated by rising air, or rather temperature differentials across areas of the planet where surface radiation varies. Hence the ITCZ, Hadley cells etc. this causes phenomena such as the trade winds and ultimately the depressions and high pressure systems that drive the wind. If that is how wind is generated, what sort of numbers in terms of energy are we talking about? I would imagine that the energy required to generate wind on that scale is enormous compared with the energy we extract from wind turbines. Therefore can wind turbines have a significant or even measurable effect on weather systems? I doubt very much. Land, trees, cities all have a dramatic effect on wind speed, direction and turbulence. Do they change weather patterns. Perhaps on a continental scale and this is further complicated by they themselves being a factor (very significant one) in how much heat is radiated from the surface into the air.
So I doubt very much wind turbines would have a measurable effect on large scale weather systems. Any changes are much more likely to be driven by changes in heat radiation distribution from the surface of the planet
I could however imagine a wind farm being responsible for created local effects such as creating enough turbulence to create the formation of cumulus clouds and perhaps small thunderstorms. (I am not conscious though of ever seeing a line of cumulus down wind of a wind farm) But gsince the can also be achieved by ploughing a field, I suspect the weather is still driven by what it has always been driven by and wind farms have merely scraped a tiny, insignificant amount of energy from the atmosphere.
In other words, energy transfer due to wind speed and direction changes is tiny compared with energy transfer due surface radiation changes.

You are OK for the first 2/3 of your post. I cannot envisage turbulence from a wind farm creating even small convective cloud. Conceivably, turbulence might disrupt formation of convection.
In part, your thinking is the wrong way round. Winds are caused by heat differences As you say. The energy in wind does not convert to heat as you seem to imply. Of course, wind can modify heating and movement of hot/cold air.

A small cumulus is about o1km across. A ploughed field can only generate a fairly small cloud, too small to generate the energy for a thunderstorm.

 

[franksingleton]

You are determined to have row arent you? Isnt that sort of behaviour frowned upon here?

Not at all. I just want clarity. I thought that your question was oddly phrased.

 

[LittleSister]

Little sister should be a government adviser. It’s the sort of nonsense they come up with. The difference is that I don’t think our forumite is serious.

The government didn't get to where it is today by taking my advice!

 

[Beneteau381]

Not at all. I just want clarity. I thought that your question was oddly phrased.

Others understood it and answered rationally. Do you do this deliberately to provoke to get a response so that you can then get mods to intervene which basically shuts down debate?
Just askin!

 

[boomerangben]

You are OK for the first 2/3 of your post. I cannot envisage turbulence from a wind farm creating even small convective cloud. Conceivably, turbulence might disrupt formation of convection.
In part, your thinking is the wrong way round. Winds are caused by heat differences As you say. The energy in wind does not convert to heat as you seem to imply. Of course, wind can modify heating and movement of hot/cold air.

A small cumulus is about o1km across. A ploughed field can only generate a fairly small cloud, too small to generate the energy for a thunderstorm.

My thinking was not that turbulence or wind causes heat(although I suppose ultimately that’s where most energy in the atmosphere ends up at micro scale) rather that turbulence might trigger thermal activity in an otherwise stable layer, driven by insolation/radiation. But my main point is that taking energy from the wind, or for that matter tides is not going to make any changes to weather patterns at a global, hemispheric, or indeed any scale other than minor effects very local to the site.

 

[franksingleton]

Others understood it and answered rationally. Do you do this deliberately to provoke to get a response so that you can then get mods to intervene which basically shuts down debate?
Just askin!

Why, in your query, did you not simply say ”Where does the energy in the wind go”? Your reference to extracting terra watts implied you were thinking about wind farms. Then, you went on to try to claim that wind farms could somehow affect climate and you mentioned Lorenz and his rhetorical butterfly question.

I tried to answer the original query, although I could not and still cannot understand why you asked in the first place. I responded to the butterfly effect that is so often misunderstood and quoted out of context. I replied to your suggestion that wind farms could create showers. I tried to deal with your suggestion that wind farms could affect climate. I cannot see why you are so touchy about my uncertainty as to your intentions with the first query. Perhaps, I should just have quoted A A Milne -

Where the wind comes from, where the wind goes,
Nobody tells me, nobody knows.

That might have pre-empted the somewhat nugatory interchange. For the record, I am not an eco-warrior, whatever that means. I do not tell anyone how to save the planet, My only objective in responding to weather and climate queries is to correct the misconceptions, misunderstandings, misinformation and, sometimes, downright lies that appear from time to time. I put your posts in the first two categories.

 

[Beneteau381]

Why, in your query, did you not simply say ”Where does the energy in the wind go”? Your reference to extracting terra watts implied you were thinking about wind farms. Then, you went on to try to claim that wind farms could somehow affect climate and you mentioned Lorenz and his rhetorical butterfly question.

I tried to answer the original query, although I could not and still cannot understand why you asked in the first place. I responded to the butterfly effect that is so often misunderstood and quoted out of context. I replied to your suggestion that wind farms could create showers. I tried to deal with your suggestion that wind farms could affect climate. I cannot see why you are so touchy about my uncertainty as to your intentions with the first query. Perhaps, I should just have quoted A A Milne -



That might have pre-empted the somewhat nugatory interchange. For the record, I am not an eco-warrior, whatever that means. I do not tell anyone how to save the planet, My only objective in responding to weather and climate queries is to correct the misconceptions, misunderstandings, misinformation and, sometimes, downright lies that appear from time to time. I put your posts in the first two categories.

Your deliberate transposing/missing out of words and hectoring style are irritating and the assumption that these forums are your personal fiefdom for you to judge who is wrong and right is patently wrong. For the record, I never used the word eco warrior, your anger or percieved in built prejudices seem to have blinded you to the written word and you are seeing words that I have never used. If you cant get the simple things right?
Anyway, on that simple note, Imoutahea (its a Yorkshire Goddess)

 

[franksingleton]

My thinking was not that turbulence or wind causes heat(although I suppose ultimately that’s where most energy in the atmosphere ends up at micro scale) rather that turbulence might trigger thermal activity in an otherwise stable layer, driven by insolation/radiation. But my main point is that taking energy from the wind, or for that matter tides is not going to make any changes to weather patterns at a global, hemispheric, or indeed any scale other than minor effects very local to the site.

This is a schematic of energy flows in the atmosphere

Ultimately, heat coming in from the sun is reflected or radiated back out to space. What’s happens in the atmosphere is best described by L F Richardson’s big whorls etc that I quoted earlier. A major problem with weather forecast models is calculating the diffusion and friction effects. It is easy to get it wrong and slow the atmosphere down too quickly or not enough leading to computational instability. This really can only be dealt with by filtering out small Weather detail.

 

[franksingleton]

Your deliberate transposing/missing out of words and hectoring style are irritating and the assumption that these forums are your personal fiefdom for you to judge who is wrong and right is patently wrong. For the record, I never used the word eco warrior, your anger or percieved in built prejudices seem to have blinded you to the written word and you are seeing words that I have never used. If you cant get the simple things right?
Anyway, on that simple note, Imoutahea (its a Yorkshire Goddess)

Clearly, we have different perspectives. Let us leave it there.

 

[lustyd]

calculating the diffusion and friction effects. It is easy to get it wrong and slow the atmosphere down too quickly or not enough leading to computational instability.

So you’re saying these have a significant effect on weather modelling, but not in the real world? Seems an odd stance to take.

 

[franksingleton]

So you’re saying these have a significant effect on weather modelling, but not in the real world? Seems an odd stance to take.

Not at all. Richardson adopted the big fleas little fleas saying to say -

Big whorls have little whorls feeding on their vorticity.
Little whorls have smaller whorls and so on to viscosity.

That is the way the atmosphere works. What I said was that models have problems in computing the effects. The models easily go unstable. For computational reasons, models use smoothing to eliminate small detail. The point I was trying to make was that energy diffusion is an important and significant feature of atmospheric physics. It is the answer to Benetau’s question about what happens to energy in the atmosphere.