Singapore Airlines made international news earlier this month when severe turbulence resulted in the death of one person and over 30 injured. Then, just a few days later, a the stewardess broke her spine during severe turbulence on a Turkish Airlines flight.
Several other cases of severe turbulence in this week’s news suggests that perhaps the turbulence has really gotten worse. On the other hand, we live in times when the aviation industry is under much greater scrutiny, so it’s also possible that we’re just hearing about it more because people are already paying attention. However, a review of recent research shows that this is not the case.
For example, there is an article from 2023 by University of Reading researcher Mark C. Prosser studied trends in clear air turbulence, a type of turbulence that occurs without clouds or storms, but the results do not paint a good picture. While from 1979 to 2020, the intensity of delicate or greater CAT in the North Atlantic increased by only 17 percent, moderate or greater CAT increased by 37 percent, and severe or greater CAT jumped by as much as 55 percent. So it’s not just that turbulence is happening more often. We are also seeing more grave turbulence.
There is also a document from 2017 from Dr. Paul D. Williams, professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Reading in the UK, who also co-authored the previous study. The paper used a computer model to estimate how much more turbulence there would be as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased. According to the study, we can expect delicate, moderate and severe turbulence to augment by 59, 94 and 149 percent respectively. So expect this bad turbulence to only get worse in the future. These findings are also confirmed in another article from 2023 by Dr. Soo-Hyun Kim of Seoul National Universitywhich shows that climate change can be expected to augment all types of turbulence, not just immaculate air turbulence.
In a telephone interview with Jalopnik, Dr. John A. Knox, an aviation turbulence researcher at the University of Georgia, added additional context:
We are certainly dealing here with an anecdotal situation resulting from high-profile events. And once you have one of them, the media will be much more willing to cover the next one. Because if there is another one and another one, the audience will be prepared for it. This seems to be a growing trend. But there’s also been research that I think shows quite conclusively that we’re seeing more turbulence in clear air, especially in the North Atlantic and the Northern Hemisphere. So it’s both.
Knox also pointed out that in the case of the Singapore Airlines flight, he was most likely flying over a storm and therefore experienced a different and more severe type of turbulence than most aircraft. As he put it: “Clear air turbulence is turbulence that occurs at high altitudes, away from storms and usually, but not always, associated with a jet stream. So if you fly over the storm, the situation is a little different.”
This, of course, raises the question of how climate change is exacerbating turbulence. According to Knox, some of this can be attributed to warmer water and higher air humidity. “We are adding more fuel to the fire to create more storms,” he said. It also creates a stronger temperature gradient in the upper troposphere, the part of the atmosphere below the stratosphere where planes fly. Knox added:
Warmer ocean waters and higher surface temperatures lead to warmer air with more water vapor, which fuels storms. So it’s entirely possible that in the future the storms we have will be more severe than they are now, and parts of the United States have already been shown to experience shorter, more intense rain storms than usual. So if this is already happening, it seems like a long shot for the future. So if you fly around or try to fly over stronger storms, it is very likely that you will experience more convection-related turbulence. This could be true anywhere, of course, but it’s probably more dominant at lower latitudes because, honestly, we don’t have as many jet streams at low latitudes.
But it’s not just about more, stronger storms:
This matters for wind because in mid-latitudes, the temperature gradient actually drives the wind. This is a famed relationship in meteorology called the thermal wind law. So “thermal” means temperature and wind means wind. And if you have a sturdy temperature gradient, going from balmy to icy, from lower latitudes to higher latitudes, that means that in between, in the middle latitudes, the wind blows stronger and blows from west to east. As the temperature gradient increases at cruising altitudes, the wind will become stronger. This will lead to more of what we call shear or vertical wind shear, which is a change in horizontal wind as you go up in altitude. And this leads to turmoil.
So we have an increased temperature gradient in the mid and upper troposphere, which leads to faster jet streams, and we have seen that. There have been reports of planes being faster, well, not really, but faster than the speed of sound relative to the ground due to the incredible jet stream. So faster winds mean more wind shear, which means that on scales we can’t solve with computer models, it means more of several factors – gravity waves and instability. These are small-scale types of waves and instabilities that ultimately create bumps at the scale of the plane. In the same way that a wave breaks on the beach and you see all the foam because of the air in the water, there are waves and instabilities in the atmosphere that lead to the same situation, except you don’t do it. see foam if there are no clouds. And so you fly through a turbulent region without realizing it. And that’s why you have clear air turbulence.
While it would probably be difficult to call Knox a convict when discussing the future of air travel, he didn’t sound particularly positive. Still, he also said we don’t have to accept a future where grave injuries and deaths are commonplace. After all, airplanes already have a proven technology for preventing most injuries caused by extreme turbulence – seat belts.
I think we’re going to see more turbulence around the world because it’s likely from the standpoint of what’s called convective turbulence or convection-driven turbulence – a fancy name for a storm – and also at the same time in the mid-latitudes because of changes to the jet stream. I think wherever you are, there will probably be more of them. Will this result in more injuries and deaths? I hope not, because there is a very elementary way to avoid this and that is to sit with your seatbelt on, as they say. Grave injuries occur when people are not wearing seat belts – either crew who are doing something and not wearing seat belts, or passengers who ignore the “fasten seat belts” sign and don’t understand why there is a “fastened seat belt” sign inside the vehicle. flight. Here’s why.
So I don’t think there needs to be more injuries, and certainly not more deaths. We just need to make people realize that they are not joking when they say to fasten your seat belts. You can travel a lot with a good seat belt, but if you are not wearing a seat belt and you experience a G-force of about one or more G for a compact period of time, you will hit your head and break your neck. You can die this way.
It’s not very good news, but at least now you know you’re not imagining it. The turbulence experienced by the Singapore Airlines flight may be a different, less common type of turbulence compared to what you usually experience on an airplane, but overall the turbulence is worse than in previous decades, man-made climate change is behind it, and it is only predicted to get worse. People, fasten your damn seat belts too. It’s not that arduous, and even if it’s a bit uncomfortable, it’s a lot more comfortable than having to relearn how to walk because unexpected turbulence blew you headfirst into the overhead bin.
