Will massive numbers of wind turbines eventually impact our climate?

If you had really massive amounts of them everywhere in sight and over large fractions of the ocean then you might see a small reduction in H2O ( a greenhouse gas) content in the atmosphere as they will tend to reduce evaporation by reducing average wind speed over wet surfaces. You will have to cut down most of the trees to maximise the area in which windmills can be sited and this will also tend to reduce atmospheric H2O content but will probably slightly increase atmospheric CO2 and methane levels (I'm just hand-waving here obviously - I don't have any numbers). At the moment a lot of concrete is used in windmill construction and that causes release of fossil CO2 into the atmosphere but I suppose you could postulate building part of the support masts out of recycled hydrocarbon waste instead and so lock up as much as you are releasing or maybe more.

A really interesting question.

When we consider weather and climate we are talking about what goes on inthe troposphere. The troposphere is about 16km deep at the equator, thinning to about 8km at the poles. The troposphere contains nearly all of the water in the atmosphere as a whole. Consider the height of a wind turbine, say 100mtrs. Now consider the amount of energy in the whole troposphere. Wind turbines can only possibly extract energy from a very tiny slice of the troposphere. On top of that, the higher wind speeds and higher energies are much higher up than the turbine blades. So, no they are not going to have a great effect on world climate.

Obviously there are some small local effects caused mainly by the turbulence that the turbines generate. Cities, especially those with high rise buildings, also have an effect but very localised.

When you next imagine horizon to horizon turbines, think a bit more. It is obviously not a good idea to pur turbines so close together that the turbulent wake from one reduces the efficiency of the next one. The wind, in most places, can come from a variety of directions. This means that there are limits to the spacing and general layout of a wind farm and hence to the overall density of turbines on the ground.

Some of the later designs of vetical turbines are interesting because they do not care which way the wind blows or how variable it's direction is. They also produce far less turbulence than the more usual horizontal turbines so the restrictions on spacing are different.

Your first supposition is correct. The velocity of air leaving a windmill must be less than the velocity of air entering it, or no energy transfer can occur. The effect on a global scale is miniscule, but it IS cumulative.

Although energy is conserved (somehow) the useability of the energy is not. I can't explain this succintly, but the entropy gain from a single windmill can be calculated, and then multiplied by the number of windmills. No one as yet has devised a machine that will cause entropy to decrease, so we can't get all the energy back into a useable form

I've driven through a massive farm of wind turbines that stretched for miles and miles on either side of the highway. It was in California on the I-10.

http://www.windmilltours.com/

The kinetic energy of the wind is transferred into heat through friction & lost through the cool of evaporation as it blows over all solid objects & bodies of water, respectively. This process is as ceaseless as the wind itself, indifferent if it is sliding either through some turbine's slick propellors or rushing over rocks strewn on a mountain slope or skyscapers in a cityscape.

It is an intriguing question though.

;-)

No, wind turbines don't affect the global climate.

They do affect the environment by providing an alternate way of generating electricity, thus reducing the amount of fossil fuels being burned (oil, natural gas, coal).

However, the percentage of electricity being generated by wind turbines is small, limiting their effectiveness in reducing greenhouse gases.

Good question? Seems like the turbine would absorb some of the wind's energy and detract from whatever natural function wind has in the ecosystem.

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the effect would be very minimal.

the most likely way it would cool the earth is reversing global warming.