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00:03 Hi, everybody.
00:04 I'm Brittany Lewis with "Forbes Breaking News."
00:06 Joining me now is Daniel Lennartsen,
00:07 a certified consulting meteorologist with DTN.
00:10 Daniel, thank you so much for joining me.
00:13 Thank you.
00:14 Thank you, Brittany.
00:15 Earlier this week, a passenger died,
00:18 and several others were injured after a Singapore Airlines
00:21 flight experienced extreme turbulence.
00:24 Obviously, this is really heartbreaking to hear.
00:26 It's also very scary if you are someone
00:28 who does travel via plane.
00:31 I am curious, though, how does turbulence
00:33 go from an inconvenience that some experience on a flight
00:36 to something that causes injury, and in this case, was deadly?
00:40 Well, there's different grades of turbulence
00:43 from different physical forces.
00:46 One of those is thunderstorms can be a very extreme case.
00:51 And others are, let's say, clear turbulence.
00:54 And those are more from disturbed flow,
00:57 large-scale flow.
00:58 But also, clear turbulence can also
01:01 be associated with areas of deep thunderstorms,
01:07 because when you have a strong updraft that
01:10 causes these thunderstorms, it disturbs the flow.
01:13 And some of these flows can be in layers.
01:14 Some of the layers in the atmosphere
01:16 are more stable than others.
01:18 So when you rip through all those layers,
01:22 the stable layers, like when I'm talking about stable,
01:25 that means if you push it up or push it down,
01:27 it's going to have a restoring force.
01:29 It's going to bring it back.
01:30 So if you disturb that flow, it's
01:32 going to emanate, kind of similar to if you ever stir
01:37 water in a bucket.
01:38 And then you move that circulation,
01:41 you see waves emanating from that flow.
01:45 The atmosphere works the same way.
01:47 It's compressible instead of incompressible, like water.
01:50 But it works the similar way.
01:53 So in a case like a plane going in even nearby a thunderstorm
01:59 complex, it can be affected, even
02:01 though they think it's coming out of thin air,
02:03 because they're not going through the cloud.
02:05 But depending on that layer, it can
02:08 emanate farther or shorter away from that thunderstorm complex,
02:13 depending on the environment.
02:16 Clean air turbulence is the most dangerous type of turbulence.
02:20 Can you talk about why?
02:21 Well, as I mentioned, it looks like it's coming out
02:24 of nowhere, because you're not going through a cloud.
02:26 All of a sudden, bang, it hits you.
02:28 It's invisible.
02:30 It's kind of like waves in water, except for water,
02:32 you can see it.
02:32 Air, you cannot.
02:34 Sometimes you can see it in a cirrus deck.
02:37 If you look on a nice day, you'll
02:39 see wave patterns in the clouds.
02:42 That's a gravity wave.
02:44 So an air-- oh, go ahead.
02:47 No, you go ahead.
02:49 So anyway, if a plane went through those areas
02:52 where there's waves, they might get a little bit of turbulence
02:55 from that.
02:56 And that's about the only way you would see it.
02:58 And clouds look different from where
03:00 you are in a cockpit versus when you're
03:02 seeing it from the ground.
03:04 So is there any way for a pilot to see this
03:08 before they're in it?
03:09 Or is it just a sort of freak accident,
03:12 because it is essentially invisible?
03:15 Well, actually, you cannot see it with the naked eye.
03:19 But there is guidance.
03:20 There's ways that we can forecast it
03:23 that have very reasonable quality that can
03:26 depict what could happen.
03:30 It predicts, like I mentioned, the stability of the layers.
03:35 The numerical models predict that.
03:38 And then we apply algorithms to those layers
03:43 and apply algorithms to those known algorithms that
03:48 work that predict the intensity of that turbulence,
03:54 depending on what that flow and the stability is like.
03:58 So on some of these things that can happen, like shear
04:01 is one very high probability of causing a turbulence.
04:06 It basically makes-- if you ever see white caps on water,
04:10 it's kind of like breaking waves.
04:12 The atmosphere works the same, except you can't
04:14 see them in the atmosphere.
04:16 So that's where you really have to rely
04:19 on these very sophisticated numerical weather models.
04:24 There's several of them the United States has,
04:26 ECMWF from Europe.
04:28 They're very high quality.
04:29 And if you can predict what the atmospheric conditions are
04:32 like, you have a great chance of predicting
04:35 where that turbulence may occur.
04:38 And usually when a pilot finds him or herself
04:42 in this type of turbulence, is there
04:44 any indication of how long the average is that it usually
04:46 lasts, or does it just depend?
04:50 Oh, sure.
04:51 With these forecasts, you can actually plot, plan.
04:56 There's two levels.
04:58 One of them is the planning.
04:59 So you can look ahead of time and plot your course
05:04 so that you avoid the turbulence.
05:06 Or tactical, and this is some kind of a now cast product
05:09 that is piped right to the cockpit
05:13 that maybe the pilots can react.
05:18 I want to talk about a 2023 study from the AGU which
05:21 found severe turbulence occurrences skyrocketed
05:24 by 55% between 1979 and 2020 in the North Atlantic.
05:30 And it's predicted that turbulence will only
05:33 continue to get worse.
05:34 Do you have any indication of why that is?
05:39 Well, some say the global warming
05:45 is some of the cause to that.
05:48 And to this end, it is true is that it more or less
05:52 amplifies the flow.
05:53 If you look in some of the articles,
05:55 amplified flow means more disturbed airflow.
06:00 So if you've got a straight line airflow,
06:03 you're less apt to get turbulence.
06:04 If you've got a lot of undulating airflow,
06:07 that's where you get into areas where you
06:10 can have increased turbulence, especially
06:12 if they're in common air routes that
06:17 go across the North Atlantic, North Pacific, et cetera.
06:22 So that's some of the things you can find.
06:24 Others, maybe on the number of thunderstorms,
06:28 that kind of thing could amplify.
06:31 Those types of things we're watching
06:34 as we go through this climate crisis of sorts,
06:39 where that still has got to be really quantified on how much
06:44 those are affecting our air routes.
06:47 Because you get maybe an increase in thunderstorms.
06:49 You get an increase in the sea surface temperature
06:52 from the warming.
06:54 We've seen that in statistics.
06:56 That actually generates more thunderstorms
06:59 in the tropics in particular.
07:01 So especially those tropical flights,
07:05 those can particularly get affected.
07:08 But also on the vigorousness of some
07:10 of those convective storms in the Midwest
07:13 or in the middle latitudes from the vigorous flow.
07:16 So if you've got more vigorous airflow patterns
07:20 in those long wave digging in, they
07:23 can make more intense storms, which could then also
07:27 cause more issues and more potential for severe turbulence
07:34 than in the past.
07:35 That's really interesting.
07:36 Are there areas throughout the country
07:38 where you're more likely to experience turbulence
07:41 than others?
07:41 Let's see.
07:45 Well, there's places that are favored
07:48 for downstream of what they call places of cyclogenesis.
07:52 Like for instance, cyclogenesis means
07:54 that it's an area where low pressures tend to form.
07:58 Some of these areas in the United States
08:00 are like we call Colorado lows.
08:02 Come off the Rockies, you stretch out the air mass,
08:07 and that causes a spin.
08:09 So if you come out across the Rocky Mountains,
08:11 then you stretch it out.
08:12 Another place is like Alberta.
08:14 Any place that's downstream of that large mountain ranges.
08:17 There's other places in the world
08:18 that also have these areas.
08:20 But if those become more vigorous because of the airflow,
08:25 more vigorous troughing and all that,
08:29 those can also get stronger and cause more severe turbulence.
08:36 I think that if anyone's been on a flight or more than one,
08:38 you've probably experienced some sort of turbulence.
08:42 But when you hear about people dying from turbulence,
08:45 people being severely injured, I am
08:47 curious if you have any tips as a meteorologist what
08:50 passengers can do to mitigate injury here, especially
08:53 from severe turbulence.
08:56 The easiest way is no matter what the little sign there
09:01 and the light is for--
09:02 keep clicking on your seat belt, just keep it on.
09:05 If you're in your seat, click it on,
09:07 keep it on unless you've got to go to the bathroom
09:10 or something like that.
09:11 That's your best way, bar none.
09:15 And as a meteorologist, like I said,
09:17 is there anything that you think is
09:19 missing from this conversation when it comes to turbulence,
09:22 when it comes to safety?
09:25 Well, I think the numerical models and the turbulence
09:31 forecasting is one way that we can really--
09:35 if we can leverage that, optimize that to the extreme
09:38 where it can be, I think we can route flights
09:42 that are in much safer places.
09:45 And I think that's definitely a place
09:47 that we can start despite all the other simple stuff
09:52 that we can do, like making sure that seat belt is clicked.
09:56 So everyone--
09:57 And then-- oh, sorry, one more thing,
10:00 is the technology that the pilots have,
10:04 like using iPads and things like that,
10:07 are also improving significantly and have the bandwidth
10:11 to pull in the data that is required
10:13 to make these tactical choices, like I mentioned earlier,
10:17 where they can get information about, hey,
10:19 there's turbulence in my flight path.
10:21 I need to divert or even divert to an alternate airport
10:25 to land, even, if they're impeded to their destination
10:30 airport.
10:31 So everyone, make sure to wear those seat belts
10:33 the entire flight.
10:34 Daniel Lennartsen, thank you so much for joining me.
10:38 You're welcome.
10:39 Thank you, Brittany.
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