In reply to Jed Rothwell's message of Thu, 28 Apr 2011 15:54:31 -0400: Hi, [snip] >Wind is a function of solar radiation and >that has not changed, so I doubt overall wind or the patterns of wind have >changed, or can change.
That isn't quite true. The world's heat engine runs on the temperature difference between the surface and deep space (since that's eventually where the energy ends up as low grade heat). There are basically two paths for the heat to reach space. 1) Direct radiation from the surface. 2) Convection in the atmosphere followed by radiation to space at high altitude. Greenhouse gasses limit the former, leaving more energy utilizing the second pathway (since as you point out, the input remains essentially constant). Wind derives it's energy solely from the second pathway, hence with global warming, one might expect wind energy to actually increase somewhat. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/Project.html
