Análise da influência dos parques eólicos na modificação das condições climáticas locais em áreas piloto no Ceará e no Rio Grande do Norte

Abstract

Wind energy has emerged nationally as an energy source of great interest to the public and private authorities, favoring too many investments in installation of wind farms, especially in the Northeast coast. We must know that the poor installation of these parks can generate many impacts, both socially and environmentally. In this context, the potentiality of impacts in the climatic perspective is verified, considering the modifications that these ventures provoke in the landscape, from new uses and different occupations. In this way, this research sought to identify the impacts on the local climate, specifically through the evaluation of the parameter surface temperature, in pilot municipalities in Ceará and Rio Grande do Norte, in view of the changes in land use and occupation arising from the installation of wind farms. The methodology used was based on bibliographical research, the use of remote sensing and geoprocessing techniques that allowed the elaboration of surface thermal charts, correlated with the analyzes of the Index of Vegetation by Normalized Difference. For this specific formulas were applied, which enabled the transformation of gray levels into surface temperature. As a result, it should be noted that the thermal charts and the NDVI enabled the identification of surface temperature changes in the areas where wind turbines were installed, since with the removal of vegetation cover, increment of new equipment in the landscape and attraction of related activities , these areas started to have spectral characteristics similar to those observed in an exposed soil, evidencing an increase of surface temperature in microscale, associated to the wind farms. In this sense, an emblematic example is the municipality of Ibiapina, which was able to express temperatures that detonated around 2°C from its surroundings. It is concluded, therefore, that wind farms can generate changes in the surface temperature at the level of the soil, and, therefore, directly affect the other constituent elements of the climate, namely, air temperature, humidity and the regime of winds to leeward of the park, factors that must be verified in later studies.