Climate Change, Global Warming, And Influence On Increasing Air Turbulence

Climate change is said to have played a role in the increasing incidence of severe turbulence. (Unsplash/Markus Spiske)

JAKARTA The severe turbulence experienced by Singapore Airlines on the London-Singapore flight route has attracted the attention of the world community. The incident that occurred on Tuesday (21/5/2024) resulted in the death of one passenger and several others being injured. The current climate change is also referred to as one of the causes of the increasing frequent turbulence.

Flights from London to Singapore fell into an air bag while cabin crew were serving breakfast before experiencing turbulence. In a press conference, Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport General Manager Kittipong Kittikachorn said the incident prompted pilots to request an emergency landing.

Citing Reuters, the plane was at an altitude of 37,000 feet above the Irrawaddy Basin in Myanmar, about 10 hours after the flight.

Andrew Davis, a passenger on the plane from England, recounted the terrible incident. He also described terrible screams and sounds like oceanizing objects in the early stages of the incident.

What I remember the most were objects flying in the air. I was soaking wet by coffee. The turbulence is amazingly severe, Andrew Davis's story, citing BBC.

At the time of the incident, passengers who sat and did not wear seat belts were immediately thrown into the ceiling, resulting in injuries. Meanwhile, a 73-year-old man from England died of a heart attack.

Turbulence is a phenomenon of irregular air movement that causes wind currents. When this current invades the plane, the plane can roll over, tilt to the side, or suddenly fall from a height.

Several factors are said to be the cause of the aircraft experiencing turbulence, ranging from the air flowing from the mountains to the clouds to bad weather.

In the case of Singapore Airlines, the plane experienced extreme turbulence which caused the plane to descend so quickly that it was 31 thousand feet high. This means that the plane suddenly plunged as high as 6 thousand feet or almost 2 km at high speed.

Saat kejadian, pesawat telah mencapai Teluk Bengal yang terletak di antara anak terintai India dan Peninsula Malaya di Asia Tenggara. Beberapa pilot menganggap wilayah tersebut memang terkenal) sepanjang tahun ini karena hujan monsun dapat menyebabkan turbulence.

But commercial pilots know how to prepare a similar scenario. They usually depend on weather radar and carry extra fuel so they can fly longer while waiting for the weather to improve, if needed.

Another option, they follow a route mapped by another aircraft that recently passed through the region and has warned air traffic watchdogs about weather turmoil.

But there is one scenario that is impossible to prepare, namely when the sky is clear and the aircraft's radar does not detect anything wrong. This phenomenon is known as clean air turbulent (CAT) or clear air turbulence. This is what Singapore Airlines might have experienced last week.

"It could be that the plane is starting to vibrate, we are turning on the seat belt sign, but without realizing it we fell into the air turbulence zone," said Captain Teerawat Angkasakiat, President of the Thai Pilots Association, quoted by The New York Times.

According to a number of pilots' experience,jernis air turbulence is much more troublesome because it is very difficult to detect.

Meanwhile, 12 people were reportedly injured in severe turbulence on the Qatar Airways flight from Doha to Dublin, Ireland, May 26. The Dreamliner Boeing 787-9 aircraft experienced severe turbulence while flying over Turkey, the Dublin DAA Airport operator explained.

The incident came five days after Singapore Airlines experienced severe turbulence to an emergency landing in Bangkok, Thailand.

Aviation accidents related to turbulence are the most common type, according to a 2021 study conducted by the United States National Transportation Safety Council. In the 2009 to 2018 period, the agency found that turbulence accounted for more than a third of reported flight accidents and resulted in one or more serious injuries, but no damage to the aircraft.

Singapore Airlines itself is widely known as one of the world's leading airlines and is a benchmark for most of the aviation industry. They haven't experienced any major incidents in recent years.

The public may be wondering why recent turbulence incidents are increasingly occurring? Especially if you reflect on the experience of Singapore Airlines and Qatar Airways which is only five days away.

Are there similarities between the two incidents? If the two planes were in the same area when turbulence occurred, they might be affected by the same meteorology, according to Milton Speer, meteorologist and researcher at the University of Technology Sydney. But QF17 and SQ321 were separated by thousands of kilometers when hit by severe turbulence.

Carim said he did not see any obvious atmospheric or meteorological events linking the two turbulence events. However, recently incidents of severe turbulence have been increasing recently. Last year, scientists at the University of Reading, UK, found clear air turbulence rising 55 percent between 1979 and 2020 on the usually busy North Atlantic route.

They then attributed the increase to changes in wind speed at altitude due to warmer air from carbon emissions. Guy Gratton, chief chancellor of aviation and environmental studies at Cranfield University, said we are facing turbulence more often, one of which is because people today fly more.

Meanwhile, US Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg said climate change was one of the causes behind the increase in aviation turbulence.

"In reality, the impact of climate change is in sight in terms of our transportation," Buttigieg said at the "Face the Nation" event on CBS, Sunday (26/5/2024).

He estimates that turbulence is something that will continue to affect US travelers, domestically and abroad. Climate change causes heat waves, an increasingly extreme storm season, and an increase in turbulence by about 15 percent.

Our climate continues to evolve. Our policies and technologies as well as our infrastructure must also evolve, "said Buttigieg.

The United Nations climate agency, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), reported strong evidence that climate change has made tropical storms even more intense. Climate change warms the sea which then causes more water to evaporate. Thus, more heat and fluid rise into the air.

Warm air can transport more fluid and this produces strong angits and heavier rainstorms, which then produce severe turbulence.

Investigators will examine data from the system to understand what actually happened to Singapore Airlines flights. The data is expected to be used in scientific research to help understand the causes of turbulence and improve the turbulence prediction system.