Not so windy: Research suggests winds dying down

By AP

WASHINGTON – The wind, a favorite power source of the green energy movement, appears to be dying down across the United States. And the cause, ironically, may be global warming - the very problem wind power seeks to address.

The idea that winds may be slowing is a speculative one.

Scientists disagree whether that is happening. But a first-of-its-kind study suggests that average and peak wind speeds have been noticeably slowing since 1973, especially in the Midwest and the East.

Still, the study is preliminary. There are enough questions that even the authors say it's too early to know if this is a real trend or not. But it raises a new side effect of global warming that hasn't been looked into before.