AI Article Synopsis
- Wind and solar farms can significantly alter land surface properties, which may have unintended climate effects, especially when implemented on a large scale.
- The study used a climate model to demonstrate that large installations in the Sahara could lead to increased local temperatures and more than double the precipitation, particularly impacting the Sahel region.
- This increase is driven by factors such as increased surface friction and reduced albedo, as well as a feedback loop involving vegetation growth that further boosts precipitation, with effects mostly confined to the Sahara and minimal in other desert areas.
Article Abstract
Wind and solar farms offer a major pathway to clean, renewable energies. However, these farms would significantly change land surface properties, and, if sufficiently large, the farms may lead to unintended climate consequences. In this study, we used a climate model with dynamic vegetation to show that large-scale installations of wind and solar farms covering the Sahara lead to a local temperature increase and more than a twofold precipitation increase, especially in the Sahel, through increased surface friction and reduced albedo. The resulting increase in vegetation further enhances precipitation, creating a positive albedo-precipitation-vegetation feedback that contributes ~80% of the precipitation increase for wind farms. This local enhancement is scale dependent and is particular to the Sahara, with small impacts in other deserts.
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| http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aar5629 | DOI Listing |
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