Heterogeneous warming impacts of desert wind farms on land surface temperature and their potential drivers in Northern China

Abstract

To address rapid climate change, wind energy has been widely developed in China in the last two decades. However, wind farm (WF) turbulence effects can change the local climate by redistributing temperature, humidity, and heat fluxes. Previous studies indicate that WFs can significantly increase nighttime land surface temperature (LST); however, their conclusions are mainly derived from individual WFs and ignore heterogeneous impacts among multi-WFs in China. Another large source of uncertainty is that the WFs used in previous studies are mainly located in croplands or grasslands, which may obscure direct WF impacts because of the interactions between vegetation and the atmosphere. In this study, we detect impacts with MODIS LST products during 2001-2018 at sixteen WFs in the desert of northern China. The results suggest that the averaged warming impacts of WFs on LST are similar between nighttime (0.237 °C) and daytime (0.250 °C). However, the uncertainty is much greater for daytime (SD = 0.519 °C) than for nighttime (SD = 0.146 °C) due to spatially heterogeneous impacts of desert WFs on LST. Optimal structural equation models suggest that wind speed, precipitation, and distribution patterns of wind turbines mainly explain the spatial heterogeneity of the desert WF impacts on nighttime LST. Given the rapid development of WFs globally, the local warming impacts of WFs and their corresponding mechanisms should be highlighted as a high priority in the fields of energy and climate.

Localized Eco-Climatic Impacts of Onshore Wind Farms: A Review

“…Although in situ data monitoring has the advantages of high data accuracy and distinctive features, it is limited in scale and has a major disadvantage, especially in assessing the ecological and climatic impacts of onshore wind farms in a large-scale context. In situ data monitoring can provide reliable information for the inversion of remotely sensed data, such as inversely assessing near-surface temperatures at different times (Walsh-Thomas et al, 2012; Zhou et al, 2012; Zhou et al, 2013; Harris et al, 2014; Slawsky et al, 2015; Chang et al, 2016; Liu et al, 2021b; Luo et al, 2021; Liu et al, 2022a; Ma et al, 2022; Qin et al, 2022), vegetation indexes (Li et al, 2016; Tang et al, 2017; Xia and Zhou, 2017; Wu et al, 2019; Liu et al, 2022b; Aksoy et al, 2023), landscape patterns (Zhang et al, 2016; Diffendorfer et al, 2019; Guo et al, 2020) and other indicators in order to assess the impacts of onshore wind farms on the localized eco-climate.…”

“…Studies on the timing of warming showed that the warming effect of onshore wind farms on the near-surface is concentrated at night, and is not significant during the day (Ma et al, 2022; Qin et al, 2022). A few studies have suggested that the nighttime temperature base value decreased compared to the pre-construction period (Luo et al, 2021; Liu et al, 2022a). The results of onshore wind farm warming effects in relation to seasons are inconsistent, with most studies suggesting that warming is most significant in summer and fall (Chang et al, 2016; Liu et al, 2021b; Zhang et al, 2023).…”

“…In addition, the air temperature changes induced by onshore wind farms are not only confined to the near-surface, but extend vertically above the hub height of the turbine and horizontally downwind (Xia et al, 2019). However, it is important to note that most of the existing studies consider the effects of large-scale weather and climatic conditions on land surface temperatures, but it is also important to note that the effects of onshore wind farms on local land surface temperatures are affected by the type of land use in the subsurface, and that land surface temperatures do not vary equally in the subsurface layers of deserts, grasslands, and mountains (Liu et al, 2022a). Therefore, to accurately analyze the impacts of onshore wind farms on the local climate, the differences in land use types in the subsurface must be considered.…”