New Scientist
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Brace yourself: global warming is going to be a bumpy ride – literally. The amount of moderate to extreme turbulence affecting transatlantic flights could more than double by the middle of the century as carbon dioxide levels increase.
Turbulence can develop where clouds and storms create updraughts and downdraughts. More problematic for planes, though, is clear-air turbulence. This occurs where air at one altitude is travelling faster than the air immediately below, leading to atmospheric instabilities.
“Clear-air turbulence is invisible to the human eye and also to the electronics on planes, which makes it difficult to avoid,” says Paul Williams at the University of Reading, UK. Current estimates suggest that, on average, around 1 per cent of a transatlantic flight is spent flying through moderate to extreme clear-air turbulence.
Williams and Manoj Joshi at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, used climate models to work out whether that 1 per cent figure is likely to rise as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels increase. Read more on newscientist.com…
