How warming can affect the price of air travel

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According to new research, despite the fact that air flows due to global warming are now moving with greater speed, transatlantic flights will become longer.

New research has shown that flying from the UK to the USA now takes longer. Despite the fact that the flight in the opposite direction became shorter, the total flight time, that is, the flight there and back, still increased.

Scientists from the University of Reading, who published the results of their study in the journal Environmental Research Letters, believe that the increased flight time entails an increase in carbon emissions and fuel consumption, and all this will ultimately lead to an increase in airfare.

Speed ​​streams

High-altitude air flows in the northern and southern hemispheres are powerful enough to affect the speed of air movement around the globe.

Air travel typically uses air speeds from west to east to reduce flight times between Europe and North America.

This is one of the busiest airways, with almost 600 flights on it every day.

Previous studies have shown that climate change is likely to entail an increase in turbulence on transatlantic flights.

In a new study, scientists modeled the dynamics of changes in atmospheric winds under the condition of doubling CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.

Flight simulation under new conditions and on the same routes that are used today during transatlantic flights showed that the wind speed on the New York-London route increased by 15%.

As a result, a flight from London to New York is expected to take an average of seven hours, and a flight from New York back to London will take about 5 hours and 20 minutes.

And although the total time spent in the air increases and decreases by only a few minutes, the consequences of this will be very noticeable, the study proves.

“If you look at a round-trip flight, the time saved on a flight from New York still doesn't make up for the difference made on a longer flight to New York. That is, the total time that the plane spends in the air has still increased. And if you factor in all transatlantic flights, that's an extra 2 hours of flight time per year, an increase in fuel consumption of $22 million per year and 70 million kilograms of carbon emissions,” says study author Dr Paul Williams from the University of Reading.

And although there are no exact data and measurements of changes in airflow rates, scientists based on the fact that a record short flight from New York to London took 5 hours and 16 minutes, this flight was made in January last year.

The study is based on the study of data on flights between New York and London, the change in temperature of air flow will affect flights around the globe.

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