Protecting Gulf of Maine circulation from poorly located offshore windfarm arrays and offshore aquaculture operations.

Preventing disruption of Gulf of Maine circulation from poorly located windfarm arrays 

Draft 10/15/23

Pt. 1 Ocean windfarms- an extractive industry.

A large body of scientif  ic literature details how  ocean windfarming  is an extractive industry that changes the natural oceanic environment that the energy is diverted from, as long as that wind is blowing. And cumulatively

At Issue: If a floating offshore wind turbine array  is anchored  within a coastal current, the megawatts and gigawatts of  kinetic wind energy  that it  extracts is prevented from reaching the water column within its "wind shadow" .  This slows that portion of the current  passing through the anchored facility.

Multiple things take place  the  extracted wind energy will not empower the current via Ekman Transfer. Or at a fraction of  what  the wind does to the currents NOT passing through the Array.

A commercial fishing industry that relies on the seasonal arrival of fish & crustacean larvae, and their ecological partners, from the waters of one coastal state or nation to the waters of another, via an existing ocean current can protect their interests, by requiring offshore wind energy projects not be positioned  geographically  "upstream" on those currents 

LEGAL TOOL The citizen suit provisions of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act  provide the legal vehicle - Part 43 U.S.C. 1349 of OCSLA (pronounced "Ox-luh" )

OCSLA  43 USC 1349 § 8(p)(4) directs the Secretary to ensure activity
under that subsection is carried out . . .
[I]n a manner that provides for—
(A) safety;
(B) protection of the environment;
(C) prevention of waste;
(D) conservation of the natural resources of the outer Continental Shelf;

Let's consider "(D) conservation of the natural resources of the Outer Continental Shelf; "

The Maine Coastal Current is a natural phenomenon annually transports and distributes seasonal flows of larval fish, shellfish and plankton from the Bay of Fundy south along the Maine coast to Penobscot Bay.  Here it splits apart under the flood of Penobscot River water. Part of it  heads into the central Gulf of Maine, Part of it proceeds up Penobscot Bay   The rest continues along the coast to Massachusetts Bay   

 The Maine Coastal current itself is a natural resource, just as wind (its sustainer)   Just a)  sunlight is. as

When  the EMCC encounters the kinetic energy of the Penobscot River outflow, it gets  powered up, and   breaks into branches. Each nourishes different areas of the ocean

*Some proceed offshore into the Central Gulf of Maine.  Some travel southwest along the coast  to Massachusetts Bay.

Some travel up Penobscot Bay  as a bottom flow that rises onto the upper bay's  shoals, before entering  the tidal lower Penobscot River. 

The above is simplified.  

However the hydrology of the Gulf of Maine's chief currents is well documented, as is their roles  as ecological conveyor belts distributing  the planktonic stages of many species of regulatory concern.

Peer-reviewed studies past and recent detailing the Gulf of Maine's currents and their ecological roles - even as the species mix changes - have sufficiently identified these natural currents's systems' energetics and the dependance of biodiversity on at t windpowered  - including the changes wrought by GOM water warming.

Needed   We can model using  the  very latest 2022 and 23023 data,  the amount of water column disruption caused by an ocean wind array constantly diverting _N_ amount of gigawatts of wind energy from a discrete area of the Maine Coastal Current or other Gulf of Maine currents.

The is a trigger when it makes enough of a fuss in Neptune's kingdom for the Fish Feds and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Mgmts to have to take notice. 

Brostrom study was important - google "Goron Brostrom, ocean wind"

"In this study we outline how the presence of a large wind farm, which changes the wind stress at the sea surface, affects the upper ocean response to wind forcing. 

Using general theoretical arguments we show that large wind farms may have a direct, and strong, impact on the circulation pattern around the installation.

In particular, if the wind farm is large enough variations in the wind will create upwelling and downwelling patterns around the wind farm through divergence in the Ekman transport. 

The main theoretical description is based on the so called reduced gravity model, which describes the dynamics of a buoyant layer on top of a dense stagnant layer. 

The theoretical framework follows standard derivations used in the geophysical fluid dynamics (Gill, 1982, Pedlosky, 1987) and the analysis shows that the oceanic response is more sensitive to the curl of the wind stress than to the wind stress itself.

.....

" In the open ocean, the curl of the wind stress is usually relatively small as the gradients in the wind forcing are set by the scale of atmospheric low-pressure systems, which are much larger than the corresponding dynamical scales of the ocean. ... 

The presence of a wind farm will generate an unnaturally strong horizontal shear in the wind stress, which creates a large curl of the wind stress that causes a divergence/convergence in the upper ocean. . . 

We find that the impact on the ocean currents will increase with the size of the wind farm, and when the size is comparable with the internal radius of deformation (or internal Rossby radius) we expect to find a circulation, and an associated upwelling pattern, to be excited by the wind farm. ... 

Using a simple example we show that a wind speed  [differential] of 5–10 m/s can induce an upwelling exceeding 1/m day.

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