One of nature's little jokes

One of the great hopes for environmentally clean energy to reduce the impact of climate change is of course wind power. One of the places where, through as combination of geography, technology and economy, you would have thought wind power had a good chance of proving itself is the American Midwest. Where, according to a paper just published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, wind speeds are have been falling for decades. Because of climate change.

Never let it be said that Mother Nature doesn't have a sense of humour.

Source: Pryor, S.C., R.J. Barthelmie, D.T. Young, E. S. Takle, R. W. Arritt, D. Flory, W. J. Gutowski, A. Nunes, and J. Roads (2009), Wind speed trends over the contiguous USA, J. Geophys. Res., doi:10.1029/2008JD011416, in press.