He wondered "how much energy wind turbines can extract from global wind currents. What would happen if a hurricane encountered a large array of offshore wind turbines? Would the energy extraction due to the storm spinning the turbines' blades slow the winds and diminish the hurricane, or would the hurricane destroy the turbines?"
"So he went about developing the model further and simulating what might happen if a hurricane encountered an enormous wind farm stretching many miles offshore and along the coast. Amazingly, he found that the wind turbines could disrupt a hurricane enough to reduce peak wind speeds by up to 92 mph and decrease storm surge by up to 79 percent."
"We found that when wind turbines are present, they slow down the outer rotation winds of a hurricane," Jacobson said. "This feeds back to decrease wave height, which reduces movement of air toward the center of the hurricane, increasing the central pressure, which in turn slows the winds of the entire hurricane and dissipates it faster. In the case of Katrina, Jacobson's model revealed that an array of 78,000 wind turbines off the coast of New Orleans would have significantly weakened the hurricane well before it made landfall."
Jacobson believes that off-shore turbines have not been multiplied due to political resistance from the costs to install more. However, Jacobson explains that the significant decrease in hurricane damage from the turbines and the extra benefits of the turbines, such as generating normal electricity, reducing air pollution and global warming, and providing energy stability, would be well-worth the money put in.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140226075019.htm
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