What if the very technologies we depended on to help alleviate climate change were rendered increasing ineffective by climate change?

That may be the reality for wind power. According to a recent Scientific American blog post, a not-yet-published report in the Journal of Geophysical Research suggests that average wind strength in the United States has been decreasing for years. The culprit: global warming.

The report states that wind strength has been decreasing in both the East and Midwest for up to 30 years, thanks to a variety of factors linked to climate change. Wind is slowed by the presence of more water and less ice on lakes, and as temperature and pressure differences between the poles and equator disappear, winds have lost strength.

This report is based on tentative findings, and wind power is affected by a number of variables. But, if the conclusions of this report are verified, this is just one more example of how difficult the challenges presented by climate change will be to overcome.