Wind farm developers and investors are increasingly concerned about the potential (negative) impacts of climate change on future wind resource and the viability of existing/planned wind projects. This is partly fueled by the media’s reporting of the many claims and hypotheses about the impacts of climate change on the future wind resource. Some are sensational, others are contradictory, and still others are highly speculative. Unfortunately, these claims lack established results--After all, the future has not happened yet!
This session aims to illuminate some of the fundamental issues of climate variability and climate change, and to clearly enumerate the many uncertainties with climate projections. The bounds of these uncertainties will be quantified, and the panel will provide an honest assessment of our current understanding of the potential impacts of climate change on the future wind resource. Key questions to be addressed include:
- What is the difference between climate variability and climate change?
- What are the time scales of realizable changes in the climate (practically and statistically significant)? Climate change does not happen overnight!
- What are the key uncertainties in climate projections?
A survey of the latest studies on climate change, with an emphasis on impacts to the future wind resource:
- How large is the projected climate change signal relative to natural variability (i.e., interannual variability)?
- What are the uncertainty bounds of current climate projections?
- How well do we understand climate change’s potential impacts on future wind resources?
Will technological improvements outpace any potentially negative impacts of climate change?