Monday Moaning

Climate change isn’t only affecting things on the ground, but up in the air as well.

Climate change will lead to bumpier flights, say scientists

The shifting of the jet stream over Europe caused by global warming will lead to clear-air turbulence

Flights have become bumpier in the past 44 years, and are set to get worse as climate change affects the jet stream, a study has shown. Photograph: Pictorial Parade/Getty Images

Climate change will lead to bumpier flights caused by increased mid-air turbulence, according to an analysis by scientists of the impact of global warming on weather systems over the next four decades.

The increasing air turbulence results from the impact of climate change on the jet streams, the fast, mile-wide winds that whistle round the planet at the same altitude as airliners. The shifting of the jet stream over Europe has also been blamed for the UK’s wash-out summer in 2012 and frozen spring this year.

The rough ride ahead joins other unexpected impacts of climate change, which include dodgier wi-fi and mobile phone signals and even slower marathon race times for athletes.

Paul Williams, at the University of Reading who led the new research, said: “Air turbulence does more than just interrupt the service of in-flight drinks. It injures hundreds of passengers and aircrew every year. It also causes delays and damages planes, with the total cost to society being about £100m each year.”

The study, which used the same turbulence models that air traffic controllers use every day, found that the frequency of turbulence on the many flights between Europe and North America will double by 2050 and its intensity increase by 10-40%.

“Rerouting flights to avoid stronger patches of turbulence could increase fuel consumption and carbon emissions, make delays at airports more common, and ultimately push up ticket prices,” said Williams.

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Opinion:

Us mere mortals simply have no idea about the extent and ramifications of climate change.

Neither do the corporations and industries, and they don’t even care.

What will happen if air travel becomes nonviable? And we can’t just flit off to Miami or Hawaii for our holidays.

No living person has experienced the changes that we are having at the moment. Our knowledge comes from fossil records and historical anecdotes.

We don’t know what to expect, at the moment, there is this attitude of “Just ignore it, it’ll go away!” It won’t, ‘just go away’, it’s here and it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better; and we’d better get used to that idea.

Are we heading for a new ice-age? If so, there’s not enough fuel or electricity in the world to keep us warm, some of us are going to freeze.

Is the opposite about to happen? If the planet heats up and creates more desserts, there’s not enough food to feed us all now, let alone in the future.

Either way, we’re deep in the shit!

Be prepared people, because people are going to die! And some of those who do, are reading this now.

 

Nature Ramble

Off to the desert again this week; the Namibian desert to look at a beetle.

This is not so much a ‘ramble’ as a look at how mankind can be inspired by nature.

Mother Nature has designed many wondrous things, things that would benefit mankind, if only we stopped to look.

 

Namib Desert beetle inspires self-filling water bottle

The Namib Desert beetle harvests moisture from the air to survive

A US start-up has turned to nature to help bring water to arid areas by drawing moisture from the air.

NBD Nano aims to mimic the way a beetle survives in an African desert to create a self-filling water bottle capable of storing up to three litres every hour.

The insect harvests moisture from the air by first getting it to condense on its back and then storing the water.

Using nature as an inspiration for technology, known as biomimicry, is increasingly widespread.

NBD Nano, which consists of four recent university graduates and was formed in May, looked at the Namib Desert beetle that lives in a region that gets about half an inch of rainfall per year.

Using a similar approach, the firm wants to cover the surface of a bottle with hydrophilic (water-attracting) and hydrophobic (water-repellent) materials.

The work is still in its early stages, but it is the latest example of researchers looking at nature to find inspiration for sustainable technology.

“It was important to apply [biomimicry] to our design and we have developed a proof of concept and [are] currently creating our first fully-functional prototype,” Miguel Galvez, a co-founder, told the BBC.

“We think our initial prototype will collect anywhere from half a litre of water to three litres per hour, depending on local environments.”

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Isn’t Mother Nature wonderful?