Has Climate Change Made Commercial Flight More Problematic?

It has been over a week since I posted on this blog site. That’s because my wife and I are on a break from winter staying at a low-key resort called Hideaways at Palm Bay on the island of Exuma in the Bahamas. Travel to get here involved dealing with a two-day snowstorm that made getting off the ground and flying difficult.

Our flight was delayed and the ride was bumpy. I monitored the view from the flight deck provided by a simulation displayed on the back of the seat in front of me. It showed the flight crew changing elevations several times to search for calmer air because of ongoing turbulence. We kept moving between 9,750 and 10,700 metres (32,000 and 35,000 feet) but nothing seemed to end the shaking. Several times the flight attendants stopped providing food and beverage service over the 3-and-a-half-hour trip.

Turbulence has been in the headlines recently with many flights reporting injuries to crews and passengers because of unexpected jolts to the aircraft.  The turbulence we were experiencing is a symptom of a much bigger problem. Climate change is warming the atmosphere which now holds more water vapour and is more dynamic than in the past. A dynamic atmosphere is a turbulent one.

As I caught up on email I came across an article in Aviation Week entitled “Climate Change Makes Turbulence An Increasingly Pressing Issue.” It described turbulence as the unpredictable menace that “remains aviation’s nemesis.” Turbulence comes in different guises.

1. Turbulence associated with thunderstorms – The clouds that cause thunderstorms are called cumulonimbus. They feature convective air movement within the cloud that is extremely unpredictable. Flying through them is not a good idea with the general rule avoidance.
2. Clear air turbulence (CAT) – This form of turbulence represents a growing problem for commercial flight. The Northern Jet Stream is changing with every degree of global atmospheric warming.
3. Mountainous terrain turbulence – When winds flow perpendicularly over a mountain range, aircraft can experience downdraft turbulence just beyond the peak terrain and often hundreds of kilometres away.
4. Wind shear turbulence – This type of turbulence can affect aircraft during takeoff and landing. Wind shear recently played a part in the Delta Airlines crash in Toronto where a plane ended up on its back while miraculously 80 onboard survived.

The Aviation Week article I mentioned above, published by the American Geophysical Union in 2024, describes the first two types of turbulence and their cause. With thunderstorms, it is the convective air currents in cumulonimbus clouds. CAT occurs when jet planes pass through the upper atmosphere in commonly used traffic flight paths in the sky. Naturally occurring high winds in these Jet Stream zones and larger jets create turbulence that affects airplanes travelling in the same laneway.

Ven Sishtla, an engineering and radar systems engineer at Collins Aerospace, describes CAT as a significant turbulence contributor. He states, “The aircraft is flying in blue skies, and suddenly you get hit.”

Meteo France Forecast Engineer Alexandre Flouttard monitors weather forecasts associated with changes in the Jet Stream that lead to CAT. She notes that forecasters try to predict areas with high potential for Jet Stream turbulence and issue alerts “when all models predict it or based on pilot reports.”

Earth observation satellites are also used to detect the clouds associated with CAT. Cirrus clouds appear as long thin streamers in the sky. Lenticular are lens-shaped and can indicate where CAT is likely to occur. Neither when detected by satellite can determine the level of turbulence.

Where we are in Exuma has seen skies displaying an abundance of these clouds since we arrived. There have been few clear sunny days.

Weather forecasters today provide CAT forecast maps for air traffic controllers who then are tasked with spacing out airplanes to remove turbulence caused by traffic congestion. Flight crews discuss turbulence in preflight briefings. Sishtla explains, “They use SMI (Significant Meteorological Information) alerts, turbulence forecast charts, pilot reports and the graphical turbulence guidance models available in some areas. Pilots study whether they may find turbulence along their flightpath.”

Turbulence is categorized as light, moderate, severe or extreme. The Aviation Week article notes that a common metric is the strain a passenger feels from their seat belt.  Airborne weather radar on commercial aircraft helps with short-term decisions like those made on our flight causing the changes in altitude.

What does the future hold for commercial flight in the age of global atmospheric warming? Turbulence incidents and severity are expected to increase with damage to aircraft and injury to passengers. To counter this growing risk, advances in weather forecasting and onboard flight technology will allow aircraft to detect turbulence and wind shear events before they can cause damage. Advanced lidar is seen as one of the technologies that will help in the future. Under development are turbulence-cancelling systems such as the one being developed by Turbulence Solutions which generates counter-turbulence on the control surfaces of the aircraft to cancel 80% of the effect.

Current studies forecast CAT frequency to increase by 200 to 300% on North Atlantic flight paths by 2050 to 2080. Similar predictions are forecasted for flights over East Asia and North Africa.