Cancel Net Zero: Wind Turbines Cause Ocean Heating

Your correspondent’s work is done. Offshore wind farms cause ocean heating, with localised surface sea temperatures rising by a persistent 0.3°C-0.4°C and interannual variability up to 1°C. This is according to ground-breaking calculations made by a group of American scientists and recently published by Science. Cascading effects rippling through eco-systems not only affect sea and atmospheric temperatures but reshape the upper ocean by destabilising marine food supplies and affecting plankton and larval growth. Disruption of the Mid-Atlantic Cold Pool, a key subsurface water mass supporting regional fisheries and ecosystems, can be affected. So no more ghastly inefficient wind turbines then – if similar fears arose about hydrocarbon extraction, the operation would be shut down quicker than you could say Christopher Gary Packham.

Maybe not. Fracking for natural gas was banned in the UK once activists weaponised fears of ‘earthquakes’ similar in intensity to someone falling off a chair. Different rules apply to wind turbines, despite evidence continuing to accumulate of their destructive ability to rearrange local ecosystems. Builders of the high speed railway HS2 from London to Birmingham have been forced to spend £100 million to protect a few bats on a 1,000-metre section of the line, but green activists turn a blind eye to the worldwide slaughter of millions of the flying critters by the  blades of giant wind turbines. And nobody obsessed with the Net Zero fantasy seems to give a toss when the populations of slow-breeding large raptors – including Golden Eagles, Bald Eagles and the endangered Tasmanian Wedge-tailed Eagle – are decimated.

Imagine if you will the abuse and the likely financial bill given to any non-green industrial enterprise if highly credentialed scientists, including Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science and Wind Energy Julie Lundquist, publishing in a major academic journal had written something similar to: “Offshore wind farms may induce changes in the upper ocean and near surface atmosphere through coupled ocean-atmosphere feedbacks.”

The scientists calculated their findings by examining multi-year data off the coast of the eastern United States during calmer summer months. It is suggested that large wind turbines reduce nearby surface wave energy which in turn weakens natural and important mixing in the upper ocean. These reductions in ‘wind stress’ caused by the revolving turbine blades are said to lead to sea surface warming of up to 0.4°C and a shallower mixed ocean layer. In plain English, there is no free wind energy that can be harnessed without inconvenient side effects – giant turbines extract cooling energy from the near ocean surface and this leads to rising water temperatures. All of the resulting effects such as different ocean mixing and stratification, along with atmospheric heat exchanges, alter the delicate local balance of the ecosystem and the structure of aquatic food systems.

Needless to say, this 0.3°C -1°C local warming would count as a ‘heatwave’ or even evidence of ‘boiling’ oceans in activist circles. It is of course true that natural changes in ocean temperatures, often seasonal, occur all the time; temperatures rise and fall on a temporary basis and living organisms from coral to fish have adaptive mechanisms. Wind turbine-induced warming is shown to be permanent and marks a radical change in existing conditions. In addition, reduced wind stress supresses upwelling currents that play a vital part in the life of the ocean by spreading nutrients around. Different types of fish may be attracted to warmer waters, but existing food supplies can be threatened. “Changes in wind stress profiles… may alter wind-driven upwelling circulation, with potential impacts on nutrient delivery and coastal ecosystem dynamics,” the scientists observe.

The Mid Atlantic Cold Pool is a large mass of dense colder bottom water that plays an important ecological part off the eastern US. Wind turbines could put this ecosystem at risk since reduced upwelling and general mixing might cause warming or shrinking with widespread implications for commercial fishing and shellfish. The paper suggests the sea creatures might adapt in some ways to local changes, but in an excellent essay written in Watts Up With That?, Charles Rotter notes: “This is the ecological equivalent of installing dozens of parking lots across a forest and  wondering if wildlife will ‘adapt’.”

Or, he might have added, chopping down 100,000 mature Amazon rainforest trees to build a four-lane highway for a two-week environmental conference and hoping the local animals look both ways before crossing the road.

Rotter notes that a 0.3°C-0.4°C warming anchored to industrial infrastructure is not subtle, asking: “How can a technology be sold protecting marine ecosystems if it reorganises them?” You do not fix environmental uncertainty by imposing additional uncertainty, he adds.

Cascading alterations and ecological damage caused by wind turbines are attracting increased scientific and media interest. Not in mainstream media of course, where a blind eye is turned to the increasingly obvious ecological disadvantages and the political lies are peddled that green energy is cheap and capable of powering a modern industrial society. To date, most of the attention has been paid to onshore wind turbines, with a recent paper published by Nature noting that the effect of utility-scale wind energy production, “can be far reaching and sometimes have large and unexpected consequences for biodiversity”.

The scientists found large cascading effects that altered ecosystems and degraded habitats, suggesting: “Perhaps the greatest unknown in predicting future effects of wind power on biodiversity lies in the scope of the potential expansion of the technology and the cumulative consequences of this expansion for species and ecosystems.”

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor. Follow him on X.