The Impact Of Climate Change On Wind Energy Resources Of The United Kingdom As Simulated By A Regional Climate Model

Global warming and climate change is one of the most pressing issues in the contemporary society given its continued impacts on human life and the world’s ecosystem. The considerable effects of this issue have raised huge concerns among policymakers, governments, and the public. As a result, various initiatives have been developed in attempts to lessen global warming or climate change, especially those related to reducing the emission of greenhouse gases to the Earth’s atmosphere. Governments across the globe including the United Kingdom government have adopted various policies that focus on dealing with the issue. There are various policies that help in dealing with the issue including lessening greenhouse gases emissions, adapting to the effects of climate change, and geo-engineering of the climate system. The attempts by the UK government to address this problem require an understanding of the increasing energy demands and its future impact and use of suitable renewable energy sources.

The following report will display the current research and views that scientists have on climate change. The first source is “Climate change in the South East Queensland Region” which was published by the Queensland Government. Source 1 will be used to study the consequences of climate change expected of global climate models. The second source is “Climate Change Reconsidered II” published by The Heartland Institution of Chicago. Source 2 will be used to assess and critique computer model predictions on climate change. “Climate change in the South East Queensland Region” summarises the expected future changes in climate for the South East Queensland region. The document predicts future climate change averages under different greenhouse gas

The author was able to review a wide range of literature, on renewable energy in Scotland and onshore wind farms in particular. The author firstly established why there was a need for renewable energy by reviewing literature on climate change and how traditional electricity generation by power stations were recognised as having a detrimental impact to the environmental, as they were seen to contribute significantly to global warming by the levels of CO2 emission. The majority of wind farms in Scotland were found to be located in areas where peatlands were also found. Objective A and B highlighted a strong correlation between climate change, wind farm developments and peatlands. Although wind farms are recognised for their ability to displace CO2 by generating electricity from a renewable source, wind farms constructed on areas of peatlands can cause the peat to decompose, which results in the release of CO2 to the atmosphere. As highlighted within chapter two, climate change and renewable energy targets for the UK and Scotland have been set within the European Union’s Renewable Energy Directive 2009/28/EC. What will be interesting to see in the next couple of years is, whether the UK and Scotland’s Government will revise these targets given that they are in the process of leaving the EU.

In this investigation, I will be researching if climate change is happening, and if it is, how is it happening, how are we impacting on it, but most of all, I will be researching how will the UK affected by climate change. In the methodology, I will state how I researched and how I was able to do this investigation. In the main contents, I will be displaying the information and results I have researched, and will answer the questions that I have mentioned above. In the summary/conclusion section, I will give a big picture of what I have mentioned in the main contents, answer the questions simply. I will be adding diagrams, references and illustration here and there in this investigation.

The most commonly used method is a eight-phase system developed by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s Matthew Wheeler and Harry Hendon (2004) called the real-time multivariate MJO (RMM) index. It is derived from an analysis of the anomalies in upper and lower-level zonal winds and outgoing longwave radiation. In charted form (Fig. 1, right), the RMM shows the relative strength of the MJO at any given point as well as its location.

The fluxes will be calculated using reanalysis data for hurricane days versus non hurricane days (in the Atlantic for instance) on a given isentrope near the tropical tropopause. Three reanalyses will be used: the Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA), the MERRA Version 2 (MERRA-2), and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts’ latest reanalysis (ERA-Interim). While the three reanalyses of choice might not represent the inten- sity, size, and position of TCs well enough (e.g., Schenkel and Hart (2012)), their representation of the thermal structure of TCs is close to that observed using GPS RO (cf Figure 3 for MERRA-2). This suggests that these reanalyses might be a valuable tool to assess the average eddy fluxes of potential temperature. The reanalyzed structure of the water content field in TCs is unknown

In my opinion, the best place to build a wind farm in Cumbria is off the shore of Allonby. This is because; it has a lot of advantages which suit it, for being the best place to build a wind farm; as of its location and ingenious ideology behind it. Moreover, it is an offshore wind farm, which means that it will benefit a lot of homes, as at the sea it is extremely windy. Thus, a lot of electricity is generated, providing a lot of electricity than usual. However, some people would say that, because it is near a town, it’ll be very noisy and distracting to tourists and residents, and will even be an ‘eyesore.’ On the contrary, the wind farm will be 3 metres away from the land, so there is the least possibility of noise pollution and

The graph above shows the price of wind energy was continuing decrease. The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) expects it will drop to 2 cents in 2020

In November 2008, the United Kingdom parliament adopted a new Climate Change Act, obligating the UK to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 80% below 1990 levels by mid-century (Fankhauser, 2009). Among all sectors, the power sector accounts for nearly 25% of UK’s GHG emissions (Committee on Climate Change, 2016), which is a crucial decarburization area. Nuclear energy, believed by the UK Government, has an important role to play in delivering a long-term affordable low carbon energy future (Department for Energy and Climate Change, 2013). There are 15 reactors operating currently, generating about 21% of the nation’s electricity, but almost half of this capacity is to be retired by 2025 (World Nuclear Association, 2016). In October 2010, the British government gave permission for private suppliers to construct up to eight new nuclear power plants, among which only the Hinkley Point C (HPC) nuclear power station has a full construction and operation plan.

The western plains of North Dakota have recently experienced a boom of a great magnitude. The oil industry has found great success from fracking in the region. This Fracking is producing considerable amounts of oil and natural gas. Although the region has seen great wealth from these fossil fuels we need to remember that they are pumping great amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere which is essentially destroying our environment. Taking care of our environment has come to the forefront of the power industry lately. Many power companies are looking for alternative forms of energy that don’t harm our environment. In addition, great controversy has been generated about fracking and its effects on the environment. With the negative

Journal: R Billinton, D Huang, 2010, ‘Wind power modelling and the determination of capacity credit in an electric power system’, Proceedings of the Instituition of Mechanical Engineers, Part O: Journal of Risk and Reliability, pp. 1-9, viewed on September 12, 2011, retrieved from: http://pio.sagepub.com/content/224/1/1

“The climate and energy requirements regardless of location are interdependent, in areas where the temperatures are mild and range from the low 60s to high 70s, for example the energy requirements for residential and commercial building temperature regulation are going to be significantly less than an area that has either extremes in cold or heat. In the areas with less variation in the mean temperature, the amount of greenhouse gas emissions resulting as a by-product of energy production is no doubt going to be less. Florida is fortunate to have an abundance of energy sources present in the environment, some of which include solar power potential, geothermal energy potential, and abundance of water sources. Some noticeable effects of climate change are rising tide and ocean levels have resulted in residential areas and streets being flooded that would not normally occur, this is more prevalent in areas further south like Miami, but I have observed during high tide and spring storms abnormal water levels along coastal areas and along the St Johns River. Other impacts are species migration and habitat destruction from an incursion of seawater or temperature variances killing native species of plants, making the entire ecosystem susceptible to incursion from non-native species. Next we will take a look at some possible ways ahead for Florida in regard to renewable energy sources.

ORYZA2000 crop model used projected climate data from the outputs of GFDL2.1 (Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, version 2.1, USA) and HADCM3 (The Hadley Centre Coupled Model, version 3, UK) GCM models under the IPCC SRES A1B scenario. GFDL GCMs model having 2.5o×2.5o resolution and HADCM3 GCMs ran with 2.8°×2.8° resolution were utilized in this study. The main advantage of using two GCMs model is that these can be used in agricultural crop production assessment in many parts of the world including Bangladesh (Rimi et al. 2009; Karim et al. 2012). Furthermore, we applied the Long Ashton Research Station Weather Generator (LARS-WG, version 5.5), an extensively used stochastic weather generator to downscale two GCMs model data to the

As described earlier, the pressure coefficients recommended by ASCE 7-10 are based on the 3 seconds (3-s) gust speeds, and therefore the time histories of pressure data from the field, experimental measurements, and CFD LES should be re-analysis to reflect the 3-s gust speed approach adopted by the code. For the TTU field data and CFD LES, the time history of 15 min wind velocity and pressure data at full-scale were available. Therefore, the three seconds (3-s) wind velocity was calculated by dividing the time history of velocity into several windows, each one with a length of 3 seconds. The mean value for each window was calculated, and then the maximum of calculated mean values was specified as the 3-s wind velocity. The non-dimensional

First, the energy demands of the composite parts of the City must be calculated, different technologies assessed for their suitability and the energy potential of London be determined. A statistical model is helpful in this cross disciplinary field of science. Noting that the most likely investment will be in the “proven and tested” 3-blade wind turbine, which would require an on-shore area the size of Wales to power all of the UK [insert reference] and is deemed ‘unreliable’(Warren, Lumsden, O’Dowd, & Birnie, 2005), it is necessary to investigate combining wind power with other sustainable, renewable energy sources, such as solar power.