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

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

[i_ate_god]

citation needed

Re:Turbulence

[SJHillman]

That depends on how hot the coffee on your lap is.

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.

HSR

[Ichijo]

This is yet another reason to build high speed rail wherever it makes sense, between city pairs at least 100 miles apart where it starts to become too far to drive, and up to 500 miles apart where flying starts to become faster (curb to curb) and more cost-effective.

Re:HSR

[SJHillman]

One of the issues with the high speed rail I've seen them try to implement is too many stops, so the train is only traveling at its top speed for a relatively short time before it slows down for the next stop.

Then there's also the fact that a lot of "high speed" trains in the US are in the 40-60mph range... not very fast compared to what other countries have.

Re:HSR

[slimjim8094]

Amtrak owns 730 miles of track, including nearly all of their routes in the Northeast . But most of their routes outside that do run on freight rail tracks.

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:False Memory Syndrome?

[GameboyRMH]

You were studying ecology and didn't know those predictions were nonsense made by a crackpot? The "Ice Age scare" was about as popular in the scientific community as the 2012 Mayan apocalypse theories.

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).

Flatly speaking

[fyngyrz]

It's plain that the plain the plane is flying above serves as a base for an infinite number of planes; which plane is it that the increased turbulence is in? Can the plane not fly above or below this plane? Can't a fella go off on a tangent around here?

--Geometrically Challenged Guy

"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.

Re:In other news...

[MightyMartian]

I don't give a flying fuck about the environmentalist lobby. I'm talking about the overwhelming majority of climatologists and what they say. Trying to assert that climatologists are part of some evil liberal conspiracy to destroy the economy makes about as much as sense as Creationists claiming biologists are part of some evil liberal conspiracy to destroy Christianity.

In short, you're picking the low hanging fruit (which is the green movement), and insisting that the actual scientists are somehow part of a large political cabal. I reject that completely, just as I reject Creationists' claims that biologists are part of some atheistic cabal to bring down religion.

Again, I repeat, the universe doesn't give one fucking shit about your political leanings. They are utterly meaningless. If releasing hundreds of millions of years of sequestered carbon in the space of three centuries of industrial activity is seriously influencing global climate, then that's what is happening, and that's the end of the sentence. How we choose to deal with it is the political aspect, but we are gravely stupid species if we somehow think that any particular economic system is somehow favored by the universe, and that seems to be where your problem lies. The universe will kill a Libertarian just as quickly as it will kill a Conservative, a Liberal, a Socialist or a Communist. It does not fucking care about politics.