Mitigating the Effects of Climate Change with Wind Energy and GIS

The climate is changing, and humans are heavily exacerbating these changes. As the effects of climate change are being felt across the planet, scientists and policy makers are uniting to increase mitigation efforts and are researching renewable, clean energy sources to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere during energy production. Of the different renewable energy technologies, wind energy is one of the most researched and implemented. Over the past twenty years, researchers have been applying Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to their climate change studies. GIS allows the user to spatially view, manipulate, and analyze data to determine patterns, trends, and relationships. This paper examines the use of GIS as a tool in wind power studies to locate potential wind farm sites, model wind farm energy output, and assess the potential for implementing wind energy.