Climate Change Will Boost Plane Turbulence, Suggests Study

sciencehabit writes "Get used to a bumpy ride. The strength and frequency of atmospheric turbulence affecting transatlantic flights will increase by midcentury, a new study suggests. During winter months, 16 of the 21 often-used ways in which scientists measure turbulence suggest that the average intensity of the plane-rattling phenomenon will be between 10% and 40% stronger when CO2 concentrations are double their preindustrial value. Accordingly, the frequency of moderate-or-greater turbulence—intensities at which passengers will experience accelerations of 0.5 g or more, which are strong enough to toss items about the cabin—will rise by between 40% and 170%. As a result of pilots needing to dodge strong turbulence, flight paths will become longer, and fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions will increase—possibly leading to even more turbulence."

Comments

or, like most of the tens of thousands of models

[iggymanz]

or, alternatively, none of those things will happen. Since the mid 90s billions of dollars and euros and yen have been wasted on climate models, most of which have been utterly useless. Even this year major factors have been discovered that render all previous models void, and the "climatologists" cherry-pick, cook the books, from the pile of models after the fact to try to justify their existence. This pseudo-science should have its plug pulled, it serves no purpose other than pumping "cap and trade" scams.

Re:or, like most of the tens of thousands of model

[i_ate_god]

citation needed

Re:or, like most of the tens of thousands of model

[catchblue22]

or, alternatively, none of those things will happen. Since the mid 90s billions of dollars and euros and yen have been wasted on climate models, most of which have been utterly useless. Even this year major factors have been discovered that render all previous models void, and the "climatologists" cherry-pick, cook the books, from the pile of models after the fact to try to justify their existence. This pseudo-science should have its plug pulled, it serves no purpose other than pumping "cap and trade" scams.

Definiton of bull shit:

Bullshit is commonly used to describe statements made by people more concerned with the response of the audience than in truth and accuracy, such as goal-oriented statements made in the field of politics or advertising.

"Bullshit" does not necessarily have to be a complete fabrication; with only basic knowledge about a topic, bullshit is often used to make the audience believe that one knows far more about the topic by feigning total certainty or making probable predictions. It may also merely be "filler" or nonsense that, by virtue of its style or wording, gives the impression that it actually means something.

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

... "climate change" will also: Kill cats, dogs, babies, cause record lows (and highs), low birth weights, high birth weights, socks disappearing then reappearing, my underwear fitting tighter (and looser), unprecedented increase in the size (and shrinkage) of the male anatomy, massive increases in Al Gore's bank account and wealthy White Liberals' guilt (the two are tightly correlated), raising and lowering of sea levels, rain, snow, sleet, heat, hail, mist, unprecedented bird migration, hot weather, cold weather, and, last but hardly not least, nothing at all.

Ugh. I'll be glad when the religion of AGW "climate change" / "global warming" / "YOU'RE KILLING THE PLANET SO YOU NEED TO CUT OFF ALL TECHNOLOGY" (they say via their iPhones, Facebook, Twitter, etc. accounts, all of which require massive amounts of energy to run) is utterly and completely discredited, as it's well on its way to being.

Re:or, like most of the tens of thousands of model

[Sique]

[Citation needed]

As far as I can remember, the predictions became worse for some time and now get a little less negative, but are still worse than at the begin of the 2000s. It wouldn't call that backpedalling.

Question

[Sparticus789]

How do researchers know what turbulence was like in the pre-industrial era? Unless Ancient Astronomers took the readings and handed them down to us in carved stone tablets, we are merely GUESSING what the turbulence was like.

Re:or, like most of the tens of thousands of model

[NatasRevol]

Pretty obvious when there's a sentence like this " Even this year major factors have been discovered that render all previous models void"

ALL? Really?

False Memory Syndrome?

[cirby]

I was studying ecology in the mid-1970s, and the panic then was certainly "the ice age is coming NOW!"

If you're "remembering" the predictions as being 3000-5000 AD, then you're probably recalling the "normal" ice age predictions of the time. The panic-mongers were claiming that the ice age was already starting to happen in the 1970s, and that we'd be well frozen over by 2000 or so.

Re:or, like most of the tens of thousands of model

[interkin3tic]

I could see two ways in which these studies are/will be wastes:

1. By now, the studies are telling us what we already know, and aren't convincing policymakers or lobbyists to change because their opposition to curbing carbon dioxide emissions wasn't ever really based on skepticism of the science.

2. When most of the developed world starts feeling the negative consequences, they'll do something to alleviate the problem. And it will be some short-sighted solution that no one really fully investigated. Like iron injection. To deal with the consequences of that will be a chain of other decisions terminating in gorillas freezing to death. The bill will be sent to people who weren't involved in the decision to ignore the early warnings about climate change anyway.

Re:or, like most of the tens of thousands of model

[khallow]

As far as I can remember

So how many kilos of bullshit is your memory worth?

As for me, I find it interesting how much of the most alarmist climate research comes out of two places, the University of East Anglia (this research) or the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in NASA (particularly, the James Hansen stuff).

"Hydrogen Sonata" by Iain M. Banks covers this

[Anonymous Coward]

About page 280 he discusses the problem of modeling the future, given huge computer power.

There are 2 choices of models : either one models the physical reality in careful detail or one has averaging functions. Detailed models necessarily have chaos built in, in which case the results vary wildly and the modeler has to apply averaging or a selection function.

The choice of averaging or selection functions, in both approaches to modeling, determines the actual real-world usefulness of the models. There is no a priori way of knowing what averaging functions are useful.

It seems to me there is little discussion of the effects of different averaging functions in climate model, and not enough history to know which will be useful.

In any case, it is easy to build models, and very difficult to know their relationship to external reality.