Climate model shows large-scale wind and solar farms in the Sahara increase rain and vegetation

Li, Y., Kalnay, E., Motesharrei, S., Rivas, J., Kucharski, F., Kirk-Davidoff, D., Bach, E. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9725-0203 and Zeng, N. (2018) Climate model shows large-scale wind and solar farms in the Sahara increase rain and vegetation. Science, 361 (6406). pp. 1019-1022. ISSN 1095-9203 doi: 10.1126/science.aar5629

Abstract/Summary

Wind and solar farms offer a major pathway to clean, renewable energies. However, these farms would significantly change land surface properties, and, if sufficiently large, the farms may lead to unintended climate consequences. In this study, we used a climate model with dynamic vegetation to show that large-scale installations of wind and solar farms covering the Sahara lead to a local temperature increase and more than a twofold precipitation increase, especially in the Sahel, through increased surface friction and reduced albedo. The resulting increase in vegetation further enhances precipitation, creating a positive albedo–precipitation–vegetation feedback that contributes ~80% of the precipitation increase for wind farms. This local enhancement is scale dependent and is particular to the Sahara, with small impacts in other deserts.