Climate change to cause bumpier transatlantic flights

Climate change may lead to bumpier transatlantic flights by the middle of this century, The Cyprus Institute's (CyI) Assoc. Professor Theodoros Christoudias has told CNA, following the incident with a Singapore airlines airplane that encountered severe turbulence on -route and resulted the death of one passenger and many injured.

Prof. Christoudias, who is working on Earth System modelling, told CNA that  based on research by Professor Paul D. Williams, Professor of Atmospheric Science in the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading, UK, anthropogenic climate change is expected to strengthen the vertical wind shears at aircraft cruising altitudes within the atmospheric jet streams, and such a strengthening would increase the prevalence of the shear instabilities that generate clear-air turbulence.

According to Prof. Williams's studies on the matter, “climate models simulations suggest that climate change will lead to bumpier transatlantic flights by the middle of this century, and that the strongest turbulence will increase the most, highlighting the importance of improving turbulence forecasts and flight planning to limit discomfort and injuries to passengers and crew. Journey times may lengthen, and fuel consumption and emissions may increase”.

Asked what caused the turbulence to be so intense, he said that commercial aircraft encounter moderate-or-greater turbulence tens of thousands of times each year world-wide, injuring probably hundreds of passengers (occasionally fatally), costing airlines tens of millions of dollars and causing structural damage to planes. An invisible form (cannot be seen by pilots or detected by satellites or on-board sensors/radar) called clear-air turbulence is predicted by models to become more frequent because of climate change.

Asked if this has to do with climate change or not, Prof. Christoudias told CNA that Prof. William’s publications show evidence that severe clear-air turbulence has already increased by 55% since 1979, and that eastbound transatlantic flights encounter more turbulence than westbound flights. Climate change is also affecting take-off conditions for aircraft based on time series of meteorological parameters at ten Greek airports since 1955, indicating the level of climate change in the Eastern Mediterranean area.

Invited to say what we can expect in the future, Prof. Christoudias said that aircraft turbulence is expected to increase in response to climate change, including severe turbulence globally.