Posted on 04/09/2009 10:14:23 AM PDT by MediaMole
Wind Farm Interference Showing Up on Doppler Radar
(NOTE: The images referenced can be seen at the link)
During late 2008 and early 2009, an energy wind farm consisting of 36 turbines began operation in east central Dodge county on Butler Ridge in Herman township. This is about 2 miles east of Iron Ridge, just north of Rubicon and just south of Mayville and Theresa. The wind farm is owned by Babcock and Brown Power and was constructed by RES Americas Inc.
WPPI Energy purchases about 40% (20 megawatts) of the total power generated by the Butler Ridge wind farm for use by over 50 municipal utilities across Wisconsin.
Butler Ridge has an elevation of 1170 feet above mean sea level, which is about 300 feet above the elevation of the town of Hustisford, located just to the west. The Butler Ridge wind farm is about 30 miles directly north of the Weather Surveillance Doppler Radar located at the National Weather Service office near Sullivan (KMKX) in far eastern Jefferson county.
Unfortunately, the Butler Ridge wind farm and its turbines are within the radar line of sight (RLOS) of the NWS doppler radar in eastern Jefferson county. The height of the wind turbine towers are about 260 feet above the ground, and the turbine blades are about 300 feet in diameter. Hence the top of the wind turbine rotors are about 400 feet above the ground on Butler Ridge.
At this height, the rotating turbine blades of the wind farm impact the KMKX Doppler Radar beam. As you can see in the above image depicting most of southeast Wisconsin, the rotating wind turbines are having an affect on the radar beam.
A small part of the electromagnetic energy radar beam sent from the radar is reflected back by the rotating turbines. The radar processes this "returned energy" as an area of precipitation and plots it accordingly on the map. This contamination of the base reflectivity image as illustrated in the below image, has an effect on the radar algorithms used to estimate rainfall and to detect certain storm characteristics.
The rotating turbines also impact the velocity base data as you can see from the below image. This velocity data is used by radar operators and by a variety of algorithms in the radar's data processors to detect certain storm characteristics such as mesocyclones, tornado vortex signatures, and relative storm motion.
The KMKX doppler radar has a sophisticated clutter/interference removal scheme, however the scheme was designed to filter out spurious returned (reflected) energy that has little or no motion. This is effective for removing the returned signals from terrain, buildings, and other non-moving structures. Unfortunately, the radar sees the rotating wind turbine blades as targets having reflectivity and motion, hence processes these returns as weather.
The below two hour animation from the evening of April 1, between 915 pm and 11 pm CDT shows the persistent interference from the Butler Ridge wind turbine farm on the KMKX base reflectivity radar image.
Wind turbine clutter or interference that shows up on the base reflectivity and velocity images produced by the doppler radar can have several impacts including:
Thunderstorm or winter storm characteristics could be masked or misinterpreted, reducing warning effectiveness in the vicinity of, and downrange of the wind farm. False signatures contaminating Doppler velocity data in the vicinity and downrange of the wind energy facility could reduce forecaster's situational awarness, particularly during hazardous/severe weather events. Data masking or contamination if thunderstorms develop over the wind farm may negatively impact warning effectiveness. False precipitation estimates could negatively impact flash-flood warning effectiveness. The best mitigation technique is to avoid locating wind turbines in the radar line of sight (RLOS) of the doppler radar. The National Weather Service is conducting an outreach program to ensure the wind energy industry and developers are aware of NWS Doppler Radar locations and the potential impacts on radar data. The NWS Radar Operations Center (ROC) works with these developers and suggests mitigation options to consider. The NWS continues to learn about wind farm impacts on radars, weather forecast office operations, and other users where radars and wind farms are already in close proximity. Based on this information, the NWS will develop training materials for radar operators and weather forecasters on how to identify, mitigate, and partially work around wind turbine impacts during forecast and warning operations.
For much more information on how wind turbines impact doppler weather radar, check out the ROC website.
This wind farm is also very close to the Horicon Marsh, a major habitat for migratory waterfowl. Birds that aren't too savvy about flying through whirling blades.
I’ve been told the wind turbines near Palm Springs screw up LAX doppler — Women, children and minorities impacted most.
Wait till a tornado rips through a wind farm and takes those propellers with it and distributes them into some community.
I wonder if you included all of the heat generated by all of the wind farms, that you might find a significant source of ‘global warming’? Well the idea is certainly no dumber than a ‘belief’ in ‘global warming’.
Wonderful!
Eighteen words to express the concern for the potential loss of human life, and 50% greater number of words to agonize about waterfowl.
Please excuse my insensitivity, but I quit wasting my time taking people like you seriously years ago. Nothing personal.
(Member of the California Academy of Sciences at age 14 and a lifelong student of the biological and physical sciences.)
Considering the fact that the ‘disturbance’ will never move makes me think this isn’t much of a problem. Real weather moves.
That is the one I saw on a trip to Appleton. They are huge.
We have the same problem on the KICT (Wichita) radar. Wind farm in southeastern Butler county (adjacent) always shows up. Drives me nuts.
Here’s how we should power the country. Get these mini-nuclear power plants in operation. They don’t require a manned facility to generate power from the nuclear materials. You just bury the plant and only dig it up when refueling it.
Hyperion Mini-Nuclear Power Plant
http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/
Mini nuclear plants to power 20,000 homes
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/09/miniature-nuclear-reactors-los-alamos#history-byline
—
No problems for Doppler Radar or birds... LOL...
Hire a good radar signal processing wiz, do a little upgrade to your computer system, hire a few good software engineers, do some extensive beta testing and, just like that, the problem is gone. A small price to pay for reducing those evil carbon dioxide emissions that are killing the planet and ruining any chance that your children have for living a good and healthy life.
Or, alternatively, tear down the stupid windfarms and read the scientific evidence that carbon dioxide causes global warming. The reading part is easy since there is no scientific evidence that carbon dioxide is causing global warming.
Your observation is much more perceptive than you realize.
Weather is driven by energy gradients in many forms. Wind is one of those. "Capturing" energy from the natural winds, which determine weather downwind, given sufficient magnitude of the energy involved, can't help but affect weather. The only question is at which point?
You seem like a person who would profit from the following excellent recent refrence book:
What we need, obviously, is stealth windfarms.
A couple of local rednecks did some hard time for shooting at a bald eagle nest. Kill migratory waterfowl out of season and the same thing might happen.
Kill thousands at a wind turbine farm? No problem.
Since “Global Warming” was mentioned... the obligatory information for that — actually regarding “AGW” (Anthropogenic Global Warming)...
The following is an *excellent* video documentary on the so-called “Global Warming” I would recommend it to all FReepers. It’s a very well-made documentary.
“The Great Global Warming Swindle”
If you want to download it, via a BitTorrent site (using a BitTorrent client), you can get it at the following link.
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3635222/The_Great_Global_Warming_Swindle
It’s worth seeing and having for relatives, friends, neighbors and coworkers to see.
Also, see it online here...
http://www.moviesfoundonline.com/great_global_warming_swindle.php
Buy it here...
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000WLUXZE
Interesting, but big whoop. Wind energy make sense, and they will find solutions to this issue.
The KMKX doppler radar has a sophisticated clutter/interference removal scheme, however the scheme was designed to filter out spurious returned (reflected) energy that has little or no motion. This is effective for removing the returned signals from terrain, buildings, and other non-moving structures. Unfortunately, the radar sees the rotating wind turbine blades as targets having reflectivity and motion, hence processes these returns as weather.
I am certainly grateful to Mr. Marc Kavinsky for presenting this fascinating glimpse into weather science. I enjoy learning new things almost every day.
However, I take exception to his conclusions.
At present, wind farms are rather modest in size (in the larger view of things) specially as it relates to regional weather.
Means of eliminating this rather limited clutter can't possibly be that difficult. By definition, doppler radar is three dimensional and windmills have not yet been known to drift in the "X" or "Y" direction in relation to the radar site. I realize that this creates a "shadow" hiding more distant weather, but realistically its elimination on radar displays would affect only data in the smallest (a few city block?) of areas.
Granted, in the future wind farms may extend to hundreds (thousands?) of square miles, but I suspect by then other means (taller radar transmitters?) might be able to adjust to the problem.
The ingenuity of human scientists is practically unlimited.
An exquisitely sophistric fallacy.
Deliberate killing vs unintended fowl fatalities as morally equivalent?
Have you yet proposed razing all skyscrapers nationwide to eliminate the bird fatalities every single day?
Man made structures don't need to be rotating to trigger bird fatalities.
Just saying.
There is no reason in principle that you could not have a Doppler clutter map, in addition to the more customary zero Doppler clutter map.
You can also upspot in the direction (and duration) of known clutter. You take returns from a beams at higher elevation for those ranges and azimuth with known interference. (You need a multihorn antenna or a phased array) Of course this is a major software rewrite, might cost a few million bucks.
No question it lowers sensitivity, but it’s not the end of civilization.
They might even consider a local radiation fence at the radar site that shields them from backscatter radiation at very low elevations in the offending azimuths.
Nope. But the blades either rotate, or all you have is modern 'art'.
There is no equivalence between a stationary building or any other object into which birds fly and a 300’ dia spinning series of blades which knock them out of the sky.
Greenies are two faced. There is no way that a conventional energy plant could get permitting if it promised to splat thousands of migratory or endangered birds. The Left is willing to ignore or wink at the rules that encumber or shut down legitimate business if it advances their political agenda.
less than that of a tick to a dog...
Biggest Tornado Chasing Effort Ever Planned
LiveScience.com | April 7, 2009 | LiveScience Staff
Posted on 04/08/2009 4:20:11 PM PDT by wastedyears
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2225224/posts
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