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Fewer than two hours from the heart of Los Angeles, there is a wind farm. Here, at San Gorgonio Pass, over 600 turbines generate enough electricity to power thousands of homes . There are no greenhouse gases or harmful emissions to worry about either, aside from some low-level noise. In fact, this wind farm alone is estimated to prevent the release of nearly 1 million tons of carbon dioxide every single year. What's interesting about it, though, is that the San Gorgonio Wind Farm is changing the local climate ... just not in the way you might expect.

In 1989, meteorologists visited San Gorgonio and performed the first ever field campaign in an operational wind farm. The resulting data showed that areas downwind of the farm had higher near-surface air temperatures (typically measured at around two meters from the ground) during nighttime and the early hours of the morning. However, during the rest of the day, these areas were cooler than those upwind.…