Wind in the New York City Built Environment: Applications of LIDAR and In Situ Observations

The complex urban built environment of New York City, and the changing climate present challenges to structural regulators, and resiliency advocates. In particular, municipalities and other government organizations are seeking analysis of historical and extreme wind and weather interactions with structures in order to update their building codes. In this study an array of remote sensing technologies including multiple Doppler LIDAR, a ceilometer, and a microwave radiometer were used in conjunction with a network of hundreds of anemometers to build maps, profiles, and statistical models to forecast 3-D wind patterns. The atmospheric trends studied and modeled also took into account the influence of turbulence in the urban canyon of New York City. The study focused strongly on the potential effects of extreme events similar to Hurricane Sandy on vulnerable structures such as parapets, cranes, and buildings built prior to 1938.