Last year, there was considerable publicity to a study that said global warming will make turbulence over the Atlantic routes, at least, worse by mid century.
Today's story made me think - do we know whether turbulence is getting worse already? Major incidents certainly seem to come up in the news more often, but this must be a very tricky topic due to several complicating factors:
* the increase in global aviation generally
* whether the increase is happening on routes more, or less, naturally prone to turbulence
* the active steps airlines, and airline manufacturers, may be taking to avoid the risk of running into it (for example, I presume that modern aircraft radars might be better at detecting danger areas ahead).
It seems there is some research indicating it has already increased:
There is evidence that clear-air turbulence (CAT) has already risen by 40-90% over Europe and North America since 1958 and studies by researchers from the universities of Reading and East Anglia in the UK have shown that as a consequence of climate change, the frequency of turbulence on flights between Europe and North America could double by 2050 and the intensity increase by 10-40%. The same researchers have since extended their previous work by analysing eight geographic regions, two flight levels, five turbulence strength categories and four seasons, and found large increases in CAT.
Not sure if I have posted about this before or not.
Still, an interesting topic, and a somewhat worrying one for the future for the slightly nervous flyer.
5 comments:
Last year, there was considerable publicity to a study that said global warming will make turbulence over the Atlantic routes, at least, worse by mid century.
Oh God.
Just update the warmlist ,stepford.
"The reason for the increases is that climate change is generating stronger wind shears within the jet stream. The wind shears can become unstable and are a major cause of turbulence."
So we are getting stronger wind shears in the jet stream. The jet stream is driven by electrical effects. Got nothing to do with CO2 which is one of the most electrically neutral gasses you could have. Two double bonds. Not much to work with there.
Its easier for water vapour and airborne water to be affected in such away as to help create greater conductivity between the ionosphere and the deep earth. CO2 is not part of this story. There are three jetstreams. There is one going Eastwood around the equator as you would expect. Because the prevailing wind is counter to the earths rotation. And since water vapour is consistent near the equator this jet stream doesn't whip around like a snakes tail. Because the electrical difference can be resolved easily since this jet stream is consistently finding the conductivity it needs.
But the other two jet streams TRAVEL IN THE WRONG DIRECTION. Bizarrely they travel WITH the rotation. They accentuate the rotation and they whip around like a cut snake. This is because the capacity for the electricity to find earth in these two regions is inconsistent. The black clouds may be hard to find. The water vapour isn't there. She whips around looking for a live volcano or a tall rocky mountain to resolve the voltage difference. The equator jetstream is consistent but the other two are all over the shop. Jumping around like a crazy nympho. Their counter intuitive direction and their whipping around like this tell us that its an electrical phenomenon.
The massive violence of extreme events on the ground happen South of the Northern jet stream and north of the Southern jetstream because these are areas where the jet-streams cannot assist with normalising these voltage differences. Its very similar on the sun. We see sunspots, which are a outer atmospheric result of massive solar weather violence going on at the surface of the suns ocean. But these are never at the equator. Because as above so below. Where the electrical differences are consistently resolvable the violent weather patterns aren't there. They aren't at the equator on the earth because the equatorial jet stream helps solve these problems. The violent weather begins at some distance from the equatorial jetstream and they are going to run themselves down before they reach as far away as the other two oddball jetstreams.
So now we can have a model of how extreme weather events should be when we are in the cold dry period of the 2030's. Somebody put your hand up and see if you can read what the result ought to be from what I have explained above.
1. Will the cold dry period of the 2030's lead to more frequent extreme weather events?
2. Will the cold dry period of the 2030's lead to more forceful extreme weather events?
At first its a bit counter-intuitive. Since the solar activity will be weaker than usual right there you would expect that these violent events would be less violent. Not so horrific. But this will not be the case in my view. I think they will be LESS FREQUENT but more violent. Whereas during the strong solar activity of the 20th century, when we had a warm climate, I think they were probably more frequent but a little bit less rugged. Now why do I think that?
Its because when we go through another little ice age ...... (as in the 2030's) eventually the cosmic rays cause the atmosphere to be denuded of water vapour. Of course there is always huge amounts of water vapour in the tropics but in these time periods the tropics shrink and suck all the other weather niches towards the centre and down the mountains.
Without so much water vapour in the atmosphere it will be so much harder for the two oddball jet streams to resolve the voltage differences between the ionosphere and the deep earth. So these differences must be resolved MUCH MORE VIOLENTLY IN THE MID-LATITUDES. Even though the production of the electrical effects at the source is weaker than usual. Which is a bit of a paradox I know but there you are.
Is anyone following the logic cascade here. Believe me it will stack up with the data.
Sorry Westward. The equator one blows WITH the prevailing wind. On the East coast the prevailing wind is usually off the ocean. Thats why the east coast of Australia typically gets reasonable rainfall while much of the rest of Australia is pretty dry. You know what I mean. The equatorial jet stream goes counter to the earths spin, which is only natural .... the other two go the wrong way, which proves electrical effects.
Only now can we explain the super-rotational cloud banks on Venus. That oddly rotate WITH the rotation of the planet, rather than against it, which would be more natural. These are cloud banks of sulphuric acid. And their direction and speed of movement has confounded mainstream science. They are mystified. They have no clue. Dog ate my homework as is always the case when you let the Jews out of the ghetto and into science.
But by extending Hunter S Thompson’s generalisations to do with electricity, from the behaviour of our jet streams to the behaviour of the cloud banks of Venus we can see that the behaviour of these cloud banks is easily understandable.
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