Climate impacts of large-scale wind farms as parameterized in a global climate model

Wind farms are represented as elevated momentum sinks as well as enhanced turbulence to represent turbine blade mixing in the Community Atmosphere Model, version 5 (CAM5), a global climate model. For a total installed capacity of 2.5 TW, to provide 16% of the world's projected electricity demand in 2050, minimal impacts are found both regionally and globally on temperature, sensible and latent heat fluxes, cloud, and precipitation.

A mean near-surface warming of 0.12 ± 0.07 K is seen within the wind farms, with a global-mean temperature change of -0.013 ± 0.015 K. Impacts on wind speed and turbulence are more pronounced but largely confined within the wind farm areas. Increasing the wind farm areas to provide an installed capacity of 10 TW, or 65% of the 2050 electricity demand, causes further impacts; however, they remain slight overall. Maximum temperature changes are less than 0.5 K in the wind farm areas.