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researcher at the University of Illinois wind farm responds to how their work was reported in the media and the Internet

This is the viral nature of the flow of information on the Internet, you can sometimes see the myths and memes developing before our eyes. Just an example of what has happened in recent days with the most compelling new wind farms that can "increase the climate change."

The article has really given this idea of ??a line of thrust was posted on Sunday night at the site of the Daily Mail comes with the title: "Wind farms may actually increase climate change by rising temperatures and rainfall, such as academics. "

least expected, that the title has quickly caught the eye and spreads with particular enthusiasm in most climate skeptics such as climate and JunkScience Depot. The news was also reported Dallasblog.com ("wind farms cause global warming, some scientists say"), then the Orange County Register site with the title. "Another global warming Go now," The article itself was an obvious pleasure in being able to spoon tablespoons of Schadenfreude:

windmills in the fight against global warming = more global warming. You have love.

But if we invest a little, we can see how this new myth was born. The Post - which has a long history of hostile stories running with the wind farms, and many, many, climate science - was clearly back on a history that day by Jonathan Leake in The Sunday Times . This story is behind a paywall, but ran with a headline that summarizes the essence of the article: ". Giant wind farms can alter the climate" However, Australia - a new role as skeptical of climate change - is Leake back to publish the article, but with a new title. "From farms alter climate, large wind, but could be used to control the weather"

Leake

The article, which attempts to summarize some of the research on how wind farms can affect local weather conditions, led to the results of a study published by Somnath Roy, Assistant Professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. But Roy was the study published in 2010. So why the Sunday Times - again, another article that is hostile to wind farms - To run as news today? Could be a way for paper to frame the news contained in the article, some Conservative MPs have expressed their hostility own wind farms?

The germ of this current interest in the study of Roy can probably be stuck in an article in New Scientist magazine published on January 30, entitled:. "The paradox clean energy can not be green for all" covered a lot of very interesting research, including a passage mentions Roy's 2010 study. (Interestingly, New Scientist magazine got in a spot problems last year on a title that covers similar research.) But it was an article - as might be expected since it reflects the state of research in this young theme - peppered with words such as "may," "maybe" and "force." He also said that the study of Roy focuses on how wind farms can affect local climate (within 300 meters of an area "downwind" turbines), and not, as could be interpreted in the E-holder, the much broader phenomenon of "climate change". In fact, the study of Roy can be read in its entirety here. (A curiosity seems to be one of the last document is published by the late climatologist Stephen Schneider of Stanford University.) From the summary:

large utility scale wind farms are growing rapidly in size and number in the world. Data from a field campaign show that wind farms in such weather can significantly affect the air temperature near the surface. These effects result from more vertical mixing due to turbulence generated by wind turbine rotors. Impacts of wind turbines on the local climate can be minimized by modifying the design of the rotor, or by placing wind farms in areas where high natural turbulence.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper is in the local process, where we find that wind farms can be warmer nights and cooler days in the neighborhood. Climate change is a long-term phenomenon that involves the process operating at larger spatial scales ... My experience is small scale (what we call the atmospheric boundary layer and / or meso-scale), not climate processes. In addition, my work does not speak of precipitation. The impacts of wind farms studied are limited to the lower atmosphere. To affect rainfall, wind farms must go high into the troposphere, where clouds form. I am familiar with the research done by others on this subject. At this point, there is no agreement. Some global studies (pdf) show that large wind farms covering millions of square kilometers affect rainfall. Moreover, a recent study (pdf) of a wind farm of about 500 GW showed that the impact of rainfall would be about 1%.

then asked if he felt his 2010 study had been well represented in the media this week. Leake said he had interviewed for the article in the Sunday Times, and "2-3 paragraphs about my research discussed in the body of the article is a reasonable representation of our work." He added: "The title probably reflects the work of other scientists, more than mine."

then moved to the mail item, he said:

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