{"id":60618,"date":"2012-12-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-oceanographers-wind-speeds-in-southern-new-england-declining-inland-remaining-steady-on-coast\/"},"modified":"2012-12-05T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-12-05T00:00:00","slug":"uri-oceanographers-wind-speeds-in-southern-new-england-declining-inland-remaining-steady-on-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2012\/12\/uri-oceanographers-wind-speeds-in-southern-new-england-declining-inland-remaining-steady-on-coast\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 oceanographers: Wind speeds in southern New England declining inland, remaining steady on coast"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tClimate change, urbanization among possible causes<\/p>\n

NARRAGANSETT, R.I. \u2013 December 5, 2012 \u2013 Oceanographers at the 溏心vlog免费B站 have analyzed long-term data from several anemometers in southern New England and found that average wind speeds have declined by about 15 percent at inland sites while speeds have remained steady at an offshore site.<\/p>\n


\n\tKelly Knorr, a graduate student at the 溏心vlog免费B站 Graduate School of Oceanography, and Professor John Merrill reported the results of their research today at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.<\/p>\n


\n\tThe researchers found that average wind speeds at T.F. Green Airport in Warwick, R.I., declined from about 9 knots to 7.7 knots from 1975 to 2011 and from about 8.2 knots to 7 knots at New Bedford Regional Airport in Massachusetts from 1973 to 2011. A 25-year record of wind speeds at a buoy at the mouth of Buzzards Bay, Mass., shows that wind speeds there remained steady at about 15 knots during the period.<\/p>\n


\n\tKnorr and Merrill suggest several reasons for the decline in wind speeds at inland locations, including changing weather patterns and urbanization.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cIf the anemometer height is at about the same level but everything else is growing up around it, like buildings and forests, that would create surface roughness or drag that could decrease wind speeds,\u201d said Knorr, an ensign in the U.S. Navy assigned to 溏心vlog免费B站 to earn a graduate degree. <\/p>\n


\n\tThe scientists say that climate change may also be a factor. <\/p>\n


\n\u201cSouthern New England has typically had a long period of frequent winter storms, but with climate change, that pattern of winter weather is shifting to the north, meaning we may be in that pattern less often,\u201d said Merrill. \u201cIf those mid-latitude storms aren\u2019t here as often, average wind speeds will decrease.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nKnorr and Merrill say that data from other sites should be analyzed to confirm the trend they found.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cThe Department of Energy wants the U.S. to have 20 percent of its electricity generated from wind power by 2030, but if this trend of declining wind speeds is widespread across the country, then that could have a significant effect on the future of wind energy here,\u201d said Knorr.<\/p>\n


\nIn addition to analyzing the long-term data, the 溏心vlog免费B站 oceanographers examined wind profile data from towers at five sites in Rhode Island to determine how wind speeds change at varying heights above the surface. They collected data over 20 months at heights ranging from 30 to 60 meters.<\/p>\n


\nThe scientists found that wind speeds increased with height at a much greater rate at inland sites compared to sites along the ocean-facing coast.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cWind speeds at inland sites are much lower near the ground because of the greater drag at the surface, but there is much less drag the higher you go, so speeds can really pick up,\u201d Knorr said. \u201cOver the ocean, wind speeds start out stronger at the surface because there\u2019s less drag, and it doesn\u2019t increase as quickly the higher you go.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n They also found greater variation in wind speeds from daytime to nighttime at inland sites, due to the land-breeze\/sea-breeze cycle, which is a phenomenon known by sailors.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cWhen land heats up in the daytime, the warm air rises and the wind blows in from the ocean to the land,\u201d said Knorr. \u201cIn the evening it reverses. But at coastal locations, there is less land to warm up, so there is a weaker cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nKnorr and Merrill recently installed a permanent tower at the 溏心vlog免费B站 Narragansett Bay Campus to begin long-term data collection of wind speeds for further analysis. They also plan to analyze data from a number of other sites where long-term data on wind speeds have been recorded and compare it to the data from their initial sites.<\/p>\n


\n溏心vlog免费B站 Marketing & Communications photo by Michael Salerno Photography<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Climate change, urbanization among possible causes NARRAGANSETT, R.I. \u2013 December 5, 2012 \u2013 Oceanographers at the 溏心vlog免费B站 have analyzed long-term data from several anemometers in southern New England and found that average wind speeds have declined by about 15 percent at inland sites while speeds have remained steady at an offshore site. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60620,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}