Time to buckle up: Climate change could make your next flight a bumpier one

A research shows climate change is creating more turbulent air for planes because changes in wind speed at different altitudes are becoming more extreme

Keeping your seat belt buckled for the duration of trans-Atlantic flights increasingly looks like a good idea, according to a study of weather systems.

The research by meteorologists at the University of Reading in England, published this week in the journal Nature, shows climate change is creating more turbulent air for planes because changes in wind speed at different altitudes are becoming more extreme.

The scientists found that so-called vertical shear has increased 15 per cent since 1979 in the North Atlantic jet stream, a system that forms a sort of highway in the sky for flights between Europe and North America.

“Wind