In the BUBBLE (Basel Urban Boundary Layer Experiment) project, there is an intriguing study meant to understand the effects of wind on a city (in this case: Basel, Switzerland):
Wind tunnel studies offer an excellent opportunity for systematic and extensive turbulence measurements with boundary conditions which are better known and controlled than in full scale experiments.ÂThis is the motivation for the realization of an extensive wind tunnel model of the city part "Kleinbasel" at the scale 1:300. The model covers an area of a bit less than 3 km² of urban roughness densely covered by over 3 200 houses as it is typical for Basel and other european urban environments of comparable size. The reference is given by a 3d digital urban model provided by the local authorities supplemented by over 200 photos documenting street canyons, buildings arrangements and measures as well as details of the respective roof shapes. (...) a succesful delivery of this wind tunnel study will provide an extensive reference data set for urban turbulence and pollutant dispersion particularly suited for the comparison with numerical model predictions.
Why do I blog this? the picture made me think of less serious application: a huge machine to send wind on basel so that people can kite-surf the Rhine :) Ok, it's sunday, maybe I should have a cup of tea.