Here’s a new one I bet you haven’t heard before: global warming is slowing the wind down, and could lead to certain species of trees becoming extinct.
Just when you thought that the predictions couldn’t possibly get any more bizarre (remember “Global warming will cause killer cornflakes“?), scientists in Jerusalem have released a study, based on computer modelling (natch) that predicts global warming may well lead to certain species of trees becoming extinct soon by slowing down the wind.
As the Jerusalem Post reports:
Many tree species in Israel, North America and Eurasia that depend on the wind to disperse their seeds may be at risk of extinction, according to researchers at theHebrew University of Jerusalem.
On the basis of earlier work, higher concentrations of carbon dioxide are expected to cause trees to produce many more seeds and to reach maturity earlier than under current conditions, hence speeding up their spread.
On the other hand, the weakening of wind speed in certain areas should reduce spread rate of these trees.
Jerusalem Post. Many Seed-Bearing Trees may Become Extinct.
The argument is essentially based on the idea of the ‘velocity of climate change‘ – the supposition that as the temperature changes, plants and animals will need to move geographically to remain within their optimal temperature range. The authors of this report project that higher temperatures will lead to a decrease in average wind speed, which means that the trees won’t be able to keep up with climate change.
And I thought that global warming was going to lead to faster wind and more of it around the world. Which is it?
hauntingthelibrary 
It’s not global warming that’s slowing down the wind; it’s the great forests of wind turbines they’ve been building to stop the global warming, stealing the wind’s energy.
It takes energy to produce energy but the loony greens don’t know that!
Surely how fast the air moves at near-ground-level is far more obviously dependent on how many ‘wind farms’ are built, notably in the close vicinity of these trees but, like the beating wings of the proverbial butterfly, anywhere in the world might have a widespread effect.
So in that respect the rush to mitigate for ACC, if it exists at the scale being suggested, might well cause a few problems of unexpected change.
Or are there different rules for ‘free’ energy?
On the other hand the paper might just be another draw filler based on academic publishing targets. What gets measured gets done. Measure papers published and you get papers. Measure science and you get ….. well, these days who knows?
And here I was thinking that windpower was a good idea. /sarc off.
Increased wind speed can on the one hand lead to greater electricity production from wind turbines
Global Warming Reduces Available Wind Energy
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My modeling (fantasy) shows that “climate scientists,” who rely on computer models to understand the real world and shun the real world as a result, are going to have a very low income in the future when the world figures out that they are criminals and have stolen public funds, while knowing that they are making all of this stuff up.
It also predicts that they have a low sperm count. (It put that in as its hard to picture them breeding.)
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It is hard to fathom that these people believe that the survival of organisms like trees are so tenuous. This tells me that they know little to no biology, let alone botany, and are willing to extrapolate inconsequential influences to major concerns. None of these species would be here at all if life was that hard.
In related news:
“Britain is becoming less windy, raising doubts over Government’s wind farm strategy”
“New figures published by The Sunday Telegraph show that 2010 was, by one authoritative measure, the least windy year since 1824.
According to other figures from official sources, exclusively compiled for this newspaper, Britain’s wind farms turned less in 2010 than in any previous year since detailed records were kept.
The failure of the country’s massive wind industry to generate almost any electricity whatever at the time when it was most needed – during last month’s extreme cold snap – has been widely reported. But that, we can reveal, was just the tip of the turbine-blade in a decades-long trend of declining wind. It is a trend causing an increasing crisis for the industry among those, principally investors, who are more aware of events than British politicians.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/8261827/Britain-is-becoming-less-windy-raising-doubts-over-Governments-wind-farm-strategy.html
Although one might expect that at least the out-of -touch politicians would be blaming this on The Warming, this article notes that:
“There is a direct correlation between a lack of wind and cold weather. According to the Met Office, last month was the coldest December since records began a century ago. Last year as a whole was the coldest for 14 years.”
WHAT??? Didn’t they get the talking points memo about the hottest year?
Even worse, they explain that “The root of the problem is a feature in the atmosphere called the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), which controls wind speeds in northern Europe…”
Such heresy. This newspaper obviously needs to hire some soon to be laid off BBC hacks to ‘correct’ its information and attitude.
actu! LOL.
I just read the actual article. Profoundly stupid.
The ‘Onion’ publication must be a little ticked off that some rather catchy,
Onion-esque headlines are being stole from them by supposedly real scientists.
Where is The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha when we need him the most!
An additional funny thing about this crackpot research is that some of the very same people will also tell you that global warming causes more frequent and more intense hurricanes. The relationship between winds and hurricanes is clearly too abstract for them.
I have been running a computer simulation that shows that the most severa and proximal threat to human life will soon be swarming hornet-like insects with 1-meter wingspans and stings that are lethal within seconds. Try it yourself. The simulation is named “Fallout: New Vegas.”
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This distinctly reminds me of Heavy Electricity
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