How Climate Change is Impacting Airplane Turbulence
CEE Distinguished Professor Auroop Ganguly and University Distinguished and MIE William Lincoln Smith Professor Ahmed Busnaina discuss why there has been an increase in airplane turbulence recently and how the aerospace industry is working on resolving the issue through new technological advancements.
This article originally appeared on Northeastern Global News. It was published by Tanner Stening. Main photo: A growing number of reports say there has been an increase in turbulence, particularly around clear-air turbulence — the kind that is invisible and occurring in clear skies. Getty Images.
Is airplane turbulence really getting worse? Northeastern experts explain what’s happening in the jet stream
Is airplane turbulence more frequent — and more dangerous — today than it was 50 years ago?
A growing number of reports say there has been an increase in turbulence, particularly around clear-air turbulence — the kind that is invisible and occurring in clear skies.
Turbulence is caused by atmospheric dynamics at high altitudes, especially near jet streams around 30,000 feet, where fast-moving ribbons of air flow. The clear-air turbulence develops where these streams interact with surrounding air, creating strong wind shear that destabilizes the atmosphere. Unlike storm-driven turbulence, it forms in clear skies, making it hard to detect with current radar technology.
Clear-air turbulence is fundamentally different from the turbulence that occurs during a thunderstorm or when passing through a cloud. And it’s that hard-to-predict turbulence that, by some accounts, is worsening — along with the bumpy skies linked to more frequent storms.
Ahmed Busnaina, Northeastern University distinguished professor and the William Lincoln Smith chair, who studied the design of jet engines, says the aerospace industry is already taking the possibility of increased turbulence seriously.
“The problem is we can see something like a storm clearly,” Busnaina says. “You can see that on the regular radar. With clear-air turbulence, there is no way you can see it. The technology doesn’t exist today.”
Busnaina notes that companies like Boeing are designing so-called Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) systems to help spot clear-air turbulence up to 10 miles ahead of an aircraft.
Better detection would be a breakthrough for the airline industry, which relies on word-of-mouth communication between pilots and weather forecasts to avoid potentially turbulent areas, Busnaina says.
In terms of airplane engineering, newer designs are much more equipped to handle turbulence. Technologies that improve aerodynamic control, such as flexible wings and autopilot sensors that can detect changes in the surrounding airspace, have helped to make commercial aircraft more able to withstand the effects of turbulence — or navigate through turbulence more easily, according to Busnaina.
But sudden bouts of turbulence can be dangerous — even life-threatening to passengers, as was the case during a commercial flight from London to Singapore last year.
Between 2009 and 2021, 30 passengers and 116 crew members were seriously injured because of turbulence, according to Federal Aviation Administration data — a very small fraction of the billions of people who fly on airplanes every year.
Read full story at Northeastern Global News