Is Climate Change Making Your Flights More Dangerous? Study Shows 55% Increase in Turbulence!

Air travel is getting bumpier, and a new study shows that hazardous clear-air turbulence has increased by 55% from 1979.

According to research led by the University of Reading meteorologist Mark Prosser, clear-air turbulence can be dangerous because it is essentially invisible to remote sensing tools used for aviation and is challenging to predict because it is created by small-scale eddies that are too localized for most weather models to explicit calculate. Moreover, the study findings indicate that the increases in turbulence are consistent with the effects of climate change, as warmer air caused by carbon dioxide emissions is increasing windshear in the jet streams, strengthening clear-air turbulence in the North Atlantic and globally.

The research has implications for the airline industry, which already costs the industry $150 to $500 million annually in the United States alone. Therefore, experts recommend investing in improved turbulence forecasting and detection systems to prevent the rougher air from translating into bumpier flights in the coming decades.