Turbulence is unpleasant to fly through in an aircraft. Strong turbulence can even injure air passengers and flight attendants. An invisible form called clear-air turbulence (CAT) is predicted to become more frequent because of climate change. Here we analyze modern atmospheric data based on four decades of observations (1979–2020) to investigate whether CAT has already started to increase. We use 21 different turbulence calculations to ensure our results are as reliable as possible. We find clear evidence of large CAT increases in various places around the world at aircraft cruising altitudes since satellites began observing the atmosphere. For example, at a typical point over the North Atlantic, the upward trend is such that the strongest category of CAT was 55% more frequent in 2020 than 1979. Our study represents the best evidence yet that CAT has increased over the past four decades, consistent with the expected effects of climate change.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023GL103814
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