After the turbulence encounter by a Singapore Airlines aircraft, there has been a slew of articles claiming that severe turbulence incidents are rapidly increasing due to global warming. The articles below in the Seattle Times and on the BBC are just two of hundreds of such stories
Is any of this true? As I will describe below, there are substantial problems with these apocalyptic claims of radically more bumpy skies.
But before we discuss these turbulence claims, keep in mind that aircraft turbulence can be caused by several different mechanisms, and not all of them are related to changes in climate.
Much of the turbulence is due to convection associated with big cumulus clouds, like cumulonimbus, which produce thunderstorms. The turbulence on the Singapore Airlines flight was associated with tropical convection.
Other turbulence is associated with high-amplitude atmospheric waves associated with mountains (see figure). Such turbulence is often observed downstream of major mountain barriers such as the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada.
Source: Whiteman (2000)
There is also turbulence associated with vertical wind shear: if wind speed changes rapidly with height, the atmosphere can break down into turbulence eddies. This kind of turbulence often occurs without clouds and thus is often called clear air turbulence and is generally the least severe of the major turbulence mechanisms. Finally, it is possible to get turbulence near the surface, called mechanical turbulence, as air passes around objects.
How frequent are the different sources of turbulence? The best records and observations are found in the United States and the contributions of various types of turbulence by month are shown below (from an FAA document) for 2009-2018.
Convective turbulence is number one and dominates in spring and summer. Clear air or shear turbulence is number two and is most dominant during the cool season.
FAA records don't seem to suggest this. Below is a graph showing the percentage of aircraft incidents/accidents caused by turbulence (dark line). No increasing trend since the late 1980s!
So where are all these dramatic claims for increasing turbulence with global warming coming from?
Answer: from a handful of papers from one group at the University of Reading. The key paper is here.
Even more problematic, the 55% increase in turbulence they cite is NOT for the entire world but just for one region in the North Atlantic. If you read the actual paper (I have), there are all kinds of qualifiers that never made it into media stories.
To gain some perspective, their 55% increase in this one location represents an increase from 17.7 to 27.4h PER YEAR. Ten hours more a year is 0.0011 of a year. For the least severe source of aircraft turbulence (vertical wind shear).
The media did not tell you that the increase was so minor. Still worried? And that paper said nothing about the other sources of strong turbulence, which in total are more important than the shear-induced, clear-air turbulence they considered.
And there are other technical problems with the above paper that could be a real problem. For example, the weather observational system has been greatly expanded and enhanced over the past 40 years, allowing observations to far better define atmospheric structures that can produce turbulence. Massive additions of satellite data and aircraft observations have occurred during the period in which the Reading group claimed the threat was increasing the most. Was the threat really increasing or was our ability to define strong wind shear layers getting better. They didn't say.
In summary, I believe there are no reliable studies that indicate a substantial increase in aircraft turbulence due to changing climate conditions. The media is needlessly causing folks to worry about flying.
Yet again, media alarmism in service of a chosen narrative.
ReplyDeleteOne of the tenets of Anthropological Global Warming (AGW) is that the polar regions will warm more than lower latitude zones. Because this would reduce temperature contrasts there should, then, be less turbulence in the atmosphere – not more.
ReplyDeleteWhat am I missing?
That can't be because it doesn't fit the Chicken Little media hysteria. People are desperate to have some drama in their lives and they are getting a very nice dose of it from the Global Warming Boogeyman. Don't spoil the party!
DeleteMaybe it has to do with less experienced pilots and air traffic controller since Covid? Just saying.
ReplyDeleteI would still at the least keep my lap belt loosely buckled.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I am not an alarmist, there is no denying the increase in major storms across the mid Atlantic. Hence the reason why many ppl experiencing increases to home and car insurance. More storms must equal more turbulence.
ReplyDeleteI had thought the global warming crowd didn't fly because jet airplanes produced SO much carbon. Why should they care if there's more turbulence? They either believe what they preach or they don't.
ReplyDeleteI think the ultimate April 1st joke would be if Cliff posted he has been hired by the Seattle Times as an opinion writer.
ReplyDelete'Absolutely fascinating information about turbulence itself, plus an honest look at event statistics. I think the critique is fair-handed, and clear eyed. I'm glad that you were willing to take a hard look at these [dare I say "dubious" - could say "vacuous"] claims about cause and incidence. The atmosphere churns like the oceans (ups, downs, riptides) and there's nothing new about that, and its effects.
ReplyDeleteGreat article Cliff. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThe only statement I would take issue with is this: "The media is needlessly causing folks to worry about flying." From a scientific perspective, that is completely true. But from the perspective of the media and the climate cartel, "worry" sells newspapers and an entire trillion-dollar industry.
If you've ever been hit by bird droppings while walking under a tall tree in a city park, then you might be tempted to say to yourself, "Wow, it sure is a good thing cows can't fly!"
ReplyDeleteOK. Cows can't fly. But climate activists are telling us that methane emissions from cows are a major contributor to climate change.
And if climate change is in turn causing more incidents of air turbulence, which in turn are causing more air turbulence injuries among passengers flying aboard jet airliners, then it stands to reason that cow flatulence is harming people in ways that are worse than if the cows themselves could actually fly.
After all, airliner pilots could see flying cows on their forward-looking radar -- if those cows could fly -- but the pilots cannot see methane-driven air turbulence cells hiding behind weather systems passing immediately in front of them.
I am off to Red Robin this afternoon for lunch and will be pondering this matter at some length as I'm chowing down on my usual gourmet burger with endless fries.