They expect more unexpected events to occur on aircraft due to climate change.

Kind of air turbulence Unseen and unexpected will occur more frequently in Northern Hemisphere As the climate warms, it affects air travel.

A new study has found that This phenomenon, known as clear-air turbulence, also increased in the Northern Hemisphere between 1980 and 2021.

The research follows recent work that Predicts increases in moderate to severe weather disturbances by analyzing large data sets. And carry out comprehensive model simulations. The study was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

The results indicate that clear-air disturbances will increase in most regions affected by the jet stream, especially in North Africa, East Asia and the Middle East, The likelihood of clear-air turbulence increases with each degree of increase in temperature. While most people expect turbulence when flying through a thunderstorm or over a mountain range, clear-air turbulence affects aircraft in unexpected ways. Unlike other, more obvious types of turbulence, there is no easy way to detect and avoid clear-air turbulence, which occurs with clear skies.

“We know that clear-air turbulence is the leading cause of aviation disruptions, accounting for nearly 70 percent of all weather-related accidents in the United States,” said Mohamed Fouad, an atmospheric scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, in a statement. Recent, highly publicized encounters with clear-air turbulence have resulted in injuries on Singapore Airlines and Air Europa flights, the latter on a scheduled flight between Buenos Aires and Madrid.

Fouad added that aeronautical engineers must take into account the increasing turbulence when designing future aircraft.

We now have great confidence that Climate change He said that clear weather disturbances are increasing in some areas.

Most clear-air turbulence occurs near jet streams: fast-moving west-to-east air currents in the upper troposphere, where commercial aircraft fly, about 10–12 kilometers (about 32,000 miles) above the Earth’s surface. Sometimes, aircraft flying through jet streams encounter upward-moving spikes of dissipating air called vertical wind shear, creating the phenomenon of clear-air turbulence.

As the climate warms, the amount of energy in the atmosphere will increase, increasing the speed of jet streams and the amount of vertical wind shear. These increases mean that clear-air turbulence, which aircraft currently encounter about 1% of the time in the Northern Hemisphere, is expected to become more common in the future. Currently, clear-air turbulence is most common in East Asia, where the subtropical jet stream is strongest and where aircraft can expect to encounter moderate to severe clear-air turbulence about 7.5% of the time.

Fouad and colleagues used 11 climate models to determine past and future changes in clear-air turbulence. To find future trends, the researchers ran 20 computer simulations under potential future increases in temperature from 1 degree Celsius (corresponding to current warming) to 4 degrees Celsius.

In most areas of the Northern Hemisphere affected by the jet stream, turbulence will increase. In areas where clear-air turbulence will increase, the study’s models agreed more than others, which Fouad said indicates high confidence in the results. Previous studies have predicted an increase in clear-air turbulence over the North Atlantic in the future, but the new study was inconclusive for the region.

Reanalyzing atmospheric data from 1980 to 2021, the researchers found that moderate to severe clear-air disturbances increased by about 60% to 155% over North Africa, East Asia, the Middle East, the North Atlantic and the North Pacific over the 41-year period.

More off-roading

Although previous increases in North Africa, East Asia and the Middle East could be attributed to climate change, researchers have not been able to attribute increases in the North Atlantic and North Pacific to human-caused global warming. Alternatively, climate fluctuations in those regions could be masking signs of the effects of climate change.

It is difficult and expensive to predict significant turbulence, and increased turbulence can pose a problem for aircraft safety.

The researchers suggest that further analyses could determine whether future flights could be safer at higher or lower altitudes than usual. But while airline passengers may face more bumpy flights in the future, modern aircraft are designed to withstand strong turbulence.

“We will see more incidents like this, but people also need to realise that aircraft are designed to withstand the worst turbulence that can happen,” Fouad said.

European Press