Though still dismissed by conservative Evangelical skeptics as a left-wing conspiracy, is there evidence that climate change will soon make airline flight-times longer?
By: Ringo Bones
Ever since the neo-Conservatives successfully managed to
seamlessly use both politics and organized religion to discredit the validity
of the science behind climate change and global warming during the latter half
of the 1990s, climate change concerns by the world’s poorest 99-percent were
largely dismissed by right-wing Evangelical conservatives as nothing more than
left-wing conspiracy to tax the world’s richest 1-percent. Sadly, it seems that
the longer we ignore the signs of climate change and put off ways to mitigate
and even reverse its worst effects on humanity, all of humanity will be doomed
– just that the richest 1-percent will be the very last to feel its worst
effects. But will the frequent-flying richest 1-percent be affected by the
insidious effects of climate change in the form of longer flight times as they
jet-set to their various dens of iniquities?
Even though this will too affect the working-class
frequent-flyers, flights from the U.K. to the U.S. could take longer due to
changes in the climate, according to a new study. Global warming is likely to
speed up the jet stream, say researchers and slow down airplanes travelling
from the U.K. to the U.S. While eastbound flights from the U.S. to the U.K.
will be quicker but overall roundtrip journeys will “significantly lengthen.”
The University of Reading scientists believe the changes will increase carbon
emissions and fuel consumption and potentially raise airline ticket prices. The
study has been published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
High altitude jet streams in the northern and southern
hemisphere are the powerful winds that help move weather systems around the
globe. Air traffic normally tries to take advantage of these speedy flows of
the Atlantic jet stream from west to east to reduce journey times on routes
between Europe and North America. This is one of the world’s busiest air routes
with around 600 flights every day. Previous studies have shown that climate
change is likely to increase turbulence on these transatlantic flights. In this
new study, researchers modelled how atmospheric winds would change given a
doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide. They fed the results into the same
route algorithms that airlines routinely use to plan their transatlantic
journeys. They found that winds in the New York to London route will become
15-percent faster on average. Flights from London to New York will become twice
as likely to take over seven hours while the flights from New York to London
will speed up and will become twice as likely to take under five hours and
twenty minutes. While on average, flights will only gain and lose a few minutes
each way, the cumulative impact is “significant” says the study.
“If you look at the roundtrips, the eastbound flights are
getting shorter by less than the westbound flights are getting longer.” Lead
author Dr. Paul Williams from the University of Reading told BBC News. “So
there is a robust increase in the roundtrip journey time, which means planes
spending longer in the air, when you add that up for all transatlantic aircraft
you get an extra 2,000 hours of planes in the air every year, with
US$22-million extra in fuel costs and 70-million kilograms of carbon dioxide.”
The researchers say the extra carbon dioxide generated is equivalent of the
annual emissions of 7,000 British homes.
