From Newswise.com:
When the Niagara Parks Commission posed that question back in 2004, the concern was that high-rise hotels on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls were contributing to the creation of more mist, obscuring the very view that millions of tourists flock there every year to see.
The suspicion was that new high-rise buildings were altering airflow patterns, contributing to a higher, thicker mist plume.
Consultants conducted wind tunnel experiments that seemed to confirm that mist levels were enhanced by the tall buildings around the falls, a report that circulated in the Canadian news media.
Now University at Buffalo geologists have determined that the high-rise hotels are probably not to blame.
“According to our findings, it is unlikely that the buildings at the falls enhance the mist,” said Marcus Bursik, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Geology in the UB College of Arts and Sciences, who led the study with several students who were investigating the plume for their graduate-degree projects. “Rather, our data show that it’s air and water temperature that control the amount of mist.