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Projected Cross-Shore Changes in Upwelling Induced by Offshore Wind Farm Development Along the California Coast

By Kaustubha Raghukumar, Ph.D., Senior Consultant
Timothy R. Nelson, Ph.D., Project Scientist
Grace Chang, Ph.D., Senior Science Advisor, Technical Director, Marine Sciences and Engineering
Introduction

In California offshore waters, sustained northwesterly winds have been identified as a key resource that can contribute substantially to renewable energy goals. However, the development of large-scale offshore wind farms can reduce the wind stress at the sea surface, which could affect wind-driven upwelling, nutrient delivery, and ecosystem dynamics.

Here we examine changes to upwelling using atmospheric and ocean circulation numerical models together with a hypothetical upper bound buildout scenario of 877 turbines spread across three areas of interest. Wind speed changes are found to reduce upwelling on the inshore side of wind farms and increase upwelling on the offshore side. These changes, when expressed in terms of widely used metrics for upwelling volume transport and nutrient delivery, show that while the net upwelling in a wide coastal band changes relatively little, the spatial structure of upwelling within this coastal region can be shifted outside the bounds of natural variability.

Read the full paper here.

Raghukumar, Kaustubha, et al. “Cross-Shore Changes in Upwelling From Offshore Wind Farm Development in California.” Communications Earth & Environment, 13 Apr. 2023, https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-023-00780-y.

To learn more about this topic, watch this webinar hosted by POET on the effects of offshore wind farm development on upwelling with Dr. Kaus Raghukumar, the author of this paper.

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