posted on Dec, 5 2012 @ 11:37 AM
Wind speeds in southern New England declining inland, remaining steady
I don't necessarily hold that his is anything other than what the measurements indicate.
But it seems this could be pertinent to the judgments many of us debate about climate change.
Clearly, change is in the air.
Oceanographers at the University of Rhode Island have analyzed long-term data from several anemometers in southern New England and found that
average wind speeds have declined by about 15 percent at inland sites while speeds have remained steady at an offshore site.
Not being a climatologist, and lacking any education in meteorology; I am unsure of what such a state of affairs means in terms of weather patterns...
but surely it must have an impact.
On the other hand.... look what is in the meat of the article:
"The Department of Energy wants the U.S. to have 20 percent of its electricity generated from wind power by 2030, but if this trend of declining
wind speeds is widespread across the country, then that could have a significant effect on the future of wind energy here," said Knorr.
... so this is about wind farms? Why did I know that commerce had to drive the science? When commerce drives science - it becomes political...
Knorr and Merrill recently installed a permanent tower at the URI Narragansett Bay Campus to begin long-term data collection of wind speeds for
further analysis. They also plan to analyze data from a number of other sites where long-term data on wind speeds have been recorded and compare it to
the data from their initial sites.
.... yeah,.... it's about wind farms.