Feelin' queasy: More air turbulence over Atlantic
By | Associated Press – 5 hrs ago- View PhotoAssociated Press/Lefteris Pitarakis, file - FILE - A man watches as a British Airways plane lands at London's Heathrow Airport, in this Monday Jan. 10, 2011 photo. More pollution is likely to mean bumpier flights
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View PhotoFILE - In this Tuesday, Feb. 1, …
LONDON (AP) — Tourists, exchange students, masters of
the financial universe and other business travelers: It's time to buckle
up.
More pollution is likely to mean bumpier flights for trans-Atlantic travelers, researchers say, predicting increased turbulence over the North Atlantic as carbon dioxide levels rise.
University of East Anglia climate expert Manoj Joshi said scientists have long studied the impact of the carbon-heavy aviation industry on climate change. Unusually, he said, "we looked at the effect of climate change on aviation."
In a paper published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, Joshi and colleague Paul Williams
ran a climate simulation that cranked up the level of carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere to twice its pre-industrial level. Williams said they
ran a series of turbulence-predicting algorithms for the North Atlantic
winter period and compared the results to pre-industrial rates.
Queasy fliers need read no further.Williams said the results showed a 10-to-40 percent increase in the median strength of turbulence and a 40-to-170 percent increase in the frequency of moderate-or-greater turbulence. He described the latter as shaking that is "strong enough to force the pilot to switch on the seat-belt sign, knock over drinks, and make it difficult to walk."
The explanation is that global warming is expected to draw the jet stream further north, creating more of the vertical wind shear that causes turbulence.
Joshi said choppier skies might
prompt pilots to reroute their flights. Pilots interviewed by The
Associated Press, however, said as far as the busy North Atlantic flight corridor was concerned, the planes were just as likely just to power through.
"You just got to grin and bear it," said Steven Draper, a retired
airline pilot and a spokesman for the British Airline Pilots
Association.Academics who weren't involved in the research praised it.
University of Birmingham climatologist Gregor Leckebush said there weren't any substantial holes that he could see, although he did note that it relied on a single climate model.
Rob MacKenzie, a professor of atmospheric science at Birmingham, said additional models might have refined the researchers' results but their overall conclusion — "a really neat piece of work" — was not in doubt.
The aviation industry is the world's fastest-growing source of carbon dioxide emissions, a major factor in human-driven climate change. Solutions including plant-based jet fuels and carbon offsets have been considered, but politicians, aviation companies and international travelers have so far failed to significantly blunt the environmental impact of air travel.
Werner Krauss, a social anthropologist and the author of "The Climate Trap," said he doubted that the prospect of a more turbulent New York-to-London flight would jolt anyone into action.
"For decades now, environmentalists and climate scientists (have confronted) us on an almost daily basis with doom scenarios," said Krauss. "Do people still listen? I am not sure, and I am afraid bumpy air travel ... won't come as a shock."
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end quote from:
http://news.yahoo.com/feelin-queasy-more-air-turbulence-over-atlantic-152607363--finance.html
repeat partial quote from above: Williams said the results showed a 10-to-40 percent increase in the median strength of turbulence and a 40-to-170 percent increase in the frequency of moderate-or-greater turbulence. He described the latter as shaking that is "strong enough to force the pilot to switch on the seat-belt sign, knock over drinks, and make it difficult to walk." end partial quote from above.
This reminds me of flying one time from Seattle to Hawaii to Kahului Airport on Maui in the state of Hawaii. I was sitting next to an Airline pilot and I was trying to walk into my window seat with plastic cup of coca cola in my hands. However, I'm 6 foot 5 inches tall and this was difficult. Then turbulence hit and my coca cola was all over the pilot. I apologized profusely but he said, "We keep an extra dress suit just for this exact kind of situation so don't worry about it". I offered to pay his cleaning bill and he said, "Don't worry the airline pays for this kind of stuff. Later on that flight I watched the turbulence throw a female flight attendant against the ceiling of the plane and then quickly back down upon a passenger below. This was pretty crazy. But luckily, I had my seat belt on so it only hurt my waist from the tightness of the seat belt instead of injuring me by putting me on the ceiling like the airline stewardess. The most turbulence I have ever experienced has been between the mainland and Hawaii especially when you are flying above or near thunderstorms or hurricanes.(Cyclones)
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