The climate crisis is leading to more turbulence during flights, driving up costs and increasing risks for both passengers and crew: this has been stated by a new study, published in the Geophysical Research Letters journal.
The research found that flights are becoming bumpier due to the warmer air caused by carbon emissions. Severe turbulence has increased in flights around the world, in particular in the North Atlantic where it arrives up by 55%, from 17.7 hours in 1979 to 27.4 hours in 2020. Moderate turbulence increased by 37% from 70.0 to 96.1 hours, and light turbulence increased by 17% from 466.5 to 546.8 hours.
“Turbulence makes flights bumpy and can occasionally be dangerous. Airlines will need to start thinking about how they will manage the increased turbulence, as it costs the industry $150-500m annually in the USA alone”, said the study’s co-author Mark Prosser, from the University of Reading. He added that, apart from the risk of injuries to passengers and flight attendants, every additional minute spent traveling through turbulence increased the wear and tear on an aircraft.
Prof Paul Williams, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Reading and co-author of the research, said “We should be investing in improved turbulence forecasting and detection systems, to prevent the rougher air from translating into bumpier flights in the coming decades”.
Even though the US and North Atlantic had experienced the largest increases, other busy flight routes over Europe, the Middle East, and the South Atlantic are also recording significant increases in turbulence.
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