Wind atmosphere based upon how far clouds move from one image to the next. Wind engineering describes the study of the effects of the wind on the built environment, including buildings, bridges and other man-made objects. Historically, the Beaufort wind force scale (created by Beaufort) provides an empirical description of wind speed based on observed sea conditions. Originally it was a 13-level scale, but during the 1940s, the scale was expanded to 17 levels. There are general terms that differentiate winds of different average speeds such as a breeze, a gale, a storm, tornado, or a hurricane. Within the Beaufort scale,
Floating wind turbine Maine expressed concerns in 2010 about dealing with the United States regulatory environment. Since the proposed site is in Federal waters, developers would need a permit from the US Minerals Management Service, "which took more than seven years to approve a yet-to-be-built, shallow-water wind project off Cape Cod". Also, the agency is under fire in June 2010 for lax oversight of deepwater oil drilling in Federal waters. "Uncertainty over regulatory hurdles in the United States … is 'the Achilles heel' for Maine's ambitions for deepwater wind." Scale modeling and computer modeling attempt to predict the behavior of large–scale wind turbines