Why climate change is promoting severe turbulence when flying

Just a few days ago, 7 people were injured when an Airbus A330 of the Lufthansa in severe turbulence advised. On Photos and Videos you can see how badly the cabin of the aircraft was affected.

Every year airplanes hit average 5,500 severe turbulence, as pilots record in their reports. Such scenarios will arise in the future accumulate, scientists agree. Responsible for that is climate change.

Violent turbulence will increase

Pilots use them view from the cockpit, Radarsysteme and warnings other aircraft in order to identify possible turbulence at an early stage and to be able to prepare the passengers for it at an early stage.

However, so-called The clear air turbulence (Clear Air Turbulences) because they are usually violent and cannot be detected by conventional means. And exactly this Clear-Air-Turbulences are the ones affected by climate change will increase.

Clear air turbulence usually occurs when larger air masses with greatly different speeds meet. For an airplane, this usually means an unintentionally large change in altitude, which is often referred to as a kind of air hole is apprehended.

Jet streams become faster and more unstable

The phenomenon of clear air turbulence occurs mostly in areas of Jetstreams on – especially when a jet stream is passing through wind shear is unstable. And have exactly these turbulence-causing wind shears since 1979 across the North Atlantic by 15 percent increased.

Because the temperature in the troposphere is continuously increasing, but the stratosphere is cooling, would unstable jet streams with wind shear are becoming more and more frequent, explains the meteorologist Isabel Shmith in one current specialist article.

Die temperature differences between the two layers increases the speed of the jet streams, which in unstable wind currents results. It all happens in those high altitude regionsin which passenger aircraft operate, so that clear-air turbulence will increase in the coming years.

But flying shouldn’t become less safe

Some calculations assume that the number of clear air turbulences in aviation double by 2050 become. But that doesn’t mean that flying is becoming less safe.

On the one hand they will technologies, with which clear-air turbulence can be detected at an early stage, is getting better and better. On the other hand, the airlines will do their utmost to exhibit clear air turbulence.

Higher costs, higher emissions

However, this could result in Flight times increased have to be, because the routes are getting longer and longer by flying around turbulent regions. Again, that means one higher fuel consumption and one higher pollutant emissions.

Higher ticket costs will also be the result, among other things. Calculations assumethat the issue of turbulence to the airlines in the future up to 22 million dollars could cost annually. Airplanes could in future total by avoiding turbulence per year 2,000 hours be in the air longer.