[the_third_wave]

...and as if on queue the narrative around climate "crisis" is woven into an article about a plane experiencing turbulence: experts say the issue is getting worse in an era of climate crisis. Do publications like the Guardian have narrative quotas they need to achieve?

[dagmx]

Would you like to refute their claim?

Climate change causing turbulence increase is well acknowledged https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240524-severe-turbulenc...

[alexk307]

That paper has nothing to do with the incident in question. You're referencing a BBC article that references a paper stating that Clear Air Turbulence is getting worse [1]

> 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

But in the incident in question, the plane flew directly through a convective storm.

[1] https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023GL10...

[dagmx]

Ah fair call out about it being a convective storm, but those have even more evidence of worsening relative to climate change.

[alexk307]

Not according to the IPCC:

> Climate models consistently project environmental changes that would support an increase in the frequency and intensity of severe thunderstorms that combine tornadoes, hail, and winds (high confidence), but there is low confidence in the details of the projected increase.

The models project it, but there is currently low confidence in the increase.

[genewitch]

if you actually read the cited study it boils down to "we plugged in numbers and these neat heatmaps came out" and if you look at the dates it's 1979 and 2020 (in the heatmaps) and i wonder how much of that is actual location accuracy. i notice the word "accuracy" isn't in the study. that is, there were both less flights and less accuracy of actual location in 1979 (no GPS, etc); and more flights and actually accurate location information "today". It explains the heatmap differences without having to model climate at all. It would be more interesting if there was a similar, zoomed map over some coastal route during daytime for the two years where the pilots knew exactly where they were at nearly all times.

it's a fresh "model" and if you've used an LLM you know how useful models are; and the sorts of models used in these studies are about 1 billionth the size.

Further, their own dataset shows massive areas with decreased turbulence. I guess the sun and CO2 don't work there?

ya, HN, i know.

[dagmx]

Are you seriously comparing a simulation model to an LLM model?

[qcnguy]

Yeah he's right, Guardian and BBC are garbage. Check the actual data from the people who would know.

https://www.ntsb.gov/safety/safety-studies/Documents/SS2101....

Page 34. They have a graph. "After normalizing the data by annual flight hours, there was no obvious trend over time for turbulence-related Part 121 accidents during this [30 year] period."

BBC article is citing some academics doing a modeling exercise. They never learn. Academics can prove the sky is green if they're allowed to play with R for long enough. That paper isn't measuring actual turbulence, they try to derive it from physical models, but their models must suck because they draw a totally different conclusion to the real world experience of accident investigators. Evidence > academic theories.

[dagmx]

That report refers to accidents caused by turbulence not incidents of turbulence though.

[genewitch]

the "accident" refers to title 14 part 121 of the CFR, where an accident is after disembark with the intent to fly and before landing where a person is "seriously injured or killed" per 49 CFR section 830.2 (https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-B/chapter-VII...); and it's any injury where hospitalization is required for more than 48 hours, or a fracture of any bone except simple fractures of fingers, toes, nose.

it does not mean "crash", although a crash would be included. Specifically, bouncing off the ceiling and fracturing your arm or whatever would count as an accident per the definition.

it's completely valid as a refutation of the bbc article.

[graemep]

The Guardian is highly6 ideological.

I would have thought the main reason the issue is more common is simply there are far more flights.

[plucas]

This study from the University of Reading found that severe turbulence has indeed increased significantly and measurably over the last 40 years: https://research.reading.ac.uk/research-blog/2023/06/28/avia...

[alexk307]

But that's not what the paper says. It says Clear Air Turbulence (CAT) has gotten worse, not all types of turbulence. In this case, the flight flew through a convective storm.

Even so, the paper says there's been a 0.2-0.3% change in CAT:

> The largest increases in both absolute and relative MOG CAT were found over the North Atlantic and continental United States, with statistically significant absolute increases of 0.3% (26 hr) and 0.22% (19 hr), respectively, over the total reanalysis period.

[gosub100]

And if you found research contradicting that narrative, it would risk your career and/or would not be published. There is only one way to think, not open discourse.

For instance, wildfires. It's definitely climate change because something bad happened. Not classical phenomena about wind currents drying out vegetation. Or increased human development into wild areas, or a century of PUTTING OUT smaller fires, or environmental regulations against harvesting lumber. No, the only way to think is the way that leads to more regulations, taxes and grants and government waste, criminal charges for the unlucky SOB who starts the fire, higher prices (in energy, cars, buildings, and insurance), and more human suffering that they can sell you their next solution for. For this reason, I don't believe a single thing they say anymore.

[dagmx]

The irony that you are claiming everybody else will not listen to conflicting evidence while not providing any of your own and saying that you won’t believe anything unless it passes your own world view.

[gosub100]

The irony is that if the CA forest were logged and the timber used to build homes, the price of housing would be lower, there would be fewer homeless people, more people with jobs, and few or no devastating fires (less CO2, you know, the big bad "greenhouse gas") . But admitting that would be heretical to the pseudo-religion that is leftism. The party profits when suffering increases.

[dagmx]

I legitimately cannot tell if this is a parody comment or not.

It shows a shocking lack of familiarity with the effects of deforestation, carbon capture, logging rules for sustainability, land ownership for building the houses or even what the bottlenecks for housing currently are.

All to blame the intellectually bereft bogeyman of “leftism” when forests exist in many right wing states, and the right wing currently runs the government and yet even they don’t do what you’re suggesting…

[hydrogen7800]

>It's definitely climate change because something bad happened. Not classical phenomena about wind currents drying out vegetation.

>[T]he extent to which this trend is due to weather pattern changes dominated by natural variability versus anthropogenic warming has been unclear... Our results show that for the period 1979 to 2020, variation in the atmospheric circulation explains, on average, only 32% of the observed VPD [vapor pressure deficit] trend of 0.48 ± 0.25 hPa/decade (95% CI) over the WUS during the warm season (May to September). The remaining 68% of the upward VPD trend is likely due to anthropogenic warming.[0]

[0]https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2111875118#executive-s...

[macintux]

More energy = more turbulence? Amazing that it's a point of contention.

[mhb]

Could be many things. Did they consider whether the incidence of seat belt wearing has decreased? It doesn't seem that far-fetched that compliance with the directive to fasten seat belts has decreased along with respect for authority.

[interestica]

Interesting! As a continued hypothetical, it's interesting that the "No Smoking" permanently-lit sign is next to the seatbelt one. It's a weird contradiction: by being an electronic illuminated sign in the most prominent area (like a passenger HUD - reserved for critical info) it is given an elevated importance that doesn't really align with user expectation (is it really on the same level as the 'alert' implementation of the seatbelt sign?). So, there may be some kind of "cries wolf" subtle psychological effect in play: the cigarette signage is so obviously unnecessary in place and prominence that maybe the seatbelt signage takes on some of that cognitive placement (and implied importance) in mind. I think it kind of plays into that "respect for authority" you noted -- not unlike the possibility that programs like DARE that tried to group drugs like marijuana with heroin may have caused an increase in harder drug use when people realized that they were misled by that initial 'noble lie'. (See also mask use during the pandemic)

[graemep]

I wonder why they have it at all. Every flight I have been on for a very long time is completely no smoking.

I think it may have that effect on the seatbelt sign, but is it greater or less than when the no smoking sign was actually worth checking?

[curt15]

Respect for authority has decreased?

[mhb]

yes

[gosub100]

Further, if you say the same thing every time, it's not "news". "$semi-intersting-story...and oh, the climates changing". It's a non-sequitur