Meteorological influence on sound propagation between adjacent city canyons: a real-life experiment

Sound propagation between a courtyard and an adjacent street canyon, as influenced by a wide range of meteorological conditions, was investigated by means of a real-life experiment in a dense urban setting. During several months, test signals were emitted on a regular base by an outdoor loudspeaker in the courtyard and recorded by wall-mounted microphones in the courtyard and the street canyon. Detailed meteorological observations were made at nearby buildings with sensors at roof level. A thorough quality check of the recorded signals was performed, given the large amount of shielding and the presence of background noise. With increasing wind speed and sound frequency, a strong increase in coherence loss was observed. The wide variety of measured vertical temperature lapses was shown to have no effect given the short propagation distance. With increasing downwind wind speed, refraction into the shielded canyon was observed to a limited degree only. The rather small effect of building-induced refraction of sound by wind could be qualitatively explained by the geometry of the city canyons under study.