About 12 kilometres north of the Huitengliang wind farm at Xilinhot, Inner Mongolia, herdsman Siqinbateer has observed a weird phenomenon in his pasture that baffles even meteorologists.
'The ground heats up quickly, like a pan on a stove, the wind blows like a headless fly and not a single drop of rain falls,' he said in August, during the rainy season. He pointed at the spinning blades of the wind turbines over the horizon. 'This started happening after they came.'
It is not just a herdsman's superstition or his distaste for modern technology. Siqinbateer's claim is backed up by government statistics.
Li Qinghai, an engineer with the Water Statistics Bureau in Xilingol League, said the precipitation data collected by the bureau showed that adjacent to big wind farms there was an obvious decline in annual rainfall since 2005 - in some areas by as much as 80 per cent. 'The issue is often overlooked as much of Inner Mongolia is suffering an unprecedented drought,' he said. 'But after spending more than two decades studying the rise and fall of water levels in the region, I have a strong feeling that the wind turbines are playing a disruptive, if not destructive, role in this, because the droughts in these areas developed much faster than in the turbine-free regions.'
Li said he wanted to study the issue more deeply, but nobody would fund the research. Given the nationwide hype of wind-power development, the topic is considered politically incorrect.
Scientifically, warming the ground should enhance rain formation rather than suppress it. One possible explanation is virga, which are streaks of rain that are so thin that they evaporate before reaching the ground due to the soaring heat, but many scientists reject that possibility.
