No abstract

No abstract

The development of wind energy is essential for decarbonizing energy supplies. However, the construction of wind farms changes land surface temperature (LST) and vegetation by modifying land surface properties and disturbing land-atmosphere interactions. In this study, we used MODIS satellite data to quantify the impacts of 319 wind farms on local climate and vegetation in the United States. Our results indicated insignificant impacts on LST during the daytime but significant warming of 0.10°C on annual mean nighttime LST averaged for all wind farms, and 0.36°C for those 61% wind farm samples with warming. The nighttime LST impacts exhibited seasonal variations, with stronger warming in winter and autumn up to 0.18°C but weaker effects in summer and spring. We observed a decrease in peak NDVI for 59% of wind farms due to infrastructure construction, with an average decrease of 0.0067 compared to non-wind-farm areas. The impacts of wind farms depended on wind farm size, with winter LST impacts for large and small wind farms ranging from 0.21°C to 0.14°C, and peak NDVI impacts ranging from -0.009 to -0.006. The LST impacts declined with the increasing distance from the wind farm, with detectable impacts up to 10 km. In contrast, the vegetation impacts on NVDI were only evident within the wind farm locations. Wind farms built in grassland and cropland showed larger warming effects but weaker vegetation impact compared to those built on forest land. Furthermore, spatial correlation analyses with environmental factors suggest limited geographical controls on the heterogeneous wind farm impacts and highlight the important role of local factors. Our analyses based on a large sample offer new observational evidence for the wind farm impacts with improved representativeness. This knowledge is important to fully understand the climatic and environmental implications of energy system decarbonization.

Recently, a huge ultrahigh-pressure (UHP) metamorphic belt of oceanic type has been recognized in SW Tianshan, China. Petrological studies show that the UHP metamorphic rocks of SW Tianshan orogenic belt include mafic eclogites and blueschists, pelitic garnet phengite schists, marbles and serpentinites. The well-preserved coesite inclusions are commonly found in eclogites, garnet phengite schists and marbles. Ti-clinohumite and Ti-chondrodite have been identified in UHP metamorphic serpentinites. Based on the P–T pseudosection calculation and combined U–Pb zircon dating, the P–T–t path has been outlined as four stages: cold subduction to UHP conditions before c. 320 Ma whose peak ultrahigh pressure is about 30 kbar at 500°C; heating decompression from the Pmax to the Tmax stage before 305 Ma whose peak temperature is about 600°C at 22 kbar; then the early cold exhumation from amphibolite eclogite facies to epidote-amphibolite facies metamorphism before 220 Ma; and the last tectonic exhumation from epidote amphibolite facies to greenschist facies metamorphism. Combining with the syn-subduction arc-like 333–326 Ma granitic rocks and 280–260 Ma S-type granites in the coeval low-pressure and high-temperature metamorphic belt, the tectonic evolution of Tianshan UHP metamorphic belt during late Cambrian to early Triassic has been proposed in this paper.

No abstract