Massive Solar Energy Fields Could Alter Weather Patterns Half a Word Away
The future of our planet is green energy because, well it just has to be. A big part of that plan in many parts of the world is energy derived from solar farms, however, a new study has discovered that solar farms of a certain size on one side of the planet can actually affect the weather all the way on the other side of the globe.
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00:00 [MUSIC]
00:04 The future of our planet is green energy, because, well, it just has to be.
00:08 And a big part of that plan in many parts of the world is energy derived from solar farms.
00:13 However, a new study has discovered that solar farms of a certain size on one side of the planet
00:18 can actually affect the weather all the way on the other side of the globe.
00:21 Researchers built a computer simulation to see what would happen if wind farms covered 20% of the Sahara Desert,
00:27 a place ripe for green energy collection.
00:29 It has long been known that solar farms can warm the areas in which they reside,
00:33 as only part of the energy collected from the sun can actually be turned into electricity.
00:37 So imagine a large portion of an already hot desert covered in these solar arrays,
00:41 something that researchers say would actually alter global weather patterns.
00:44 According to their simulations, this would bring drier climates to the historically wet tropics,
00:49 and bring wetter weather to deserts, greenifying them.
00:52 In turn, this would also make areas that were historically better for solar collection worse,
00:56 as cloud cover would be more common. And cloudy days can prevent upwards of 75% of the energy from the sun
01:02 from being collected.
01:03 What's more, intense heat can also affect the solar farm's ability to gather energy as well.
01:08 The researchers say that the effects are a small percentage.
01:10 But as most regions around the globe have begun solar initiatives,
01:13 it will be interesting to see what actually happens.
01:18 [music]