Air turbulence has been back in the news recently, with some airline flights being impacted severely enough that people wound up being hospitalized. But is there really more turbulence being observed or is the media just covering it more intensely leading to more people talking about it? Well, there is at least one group of meteorologists who claim that the amount of clear air turbulence has been steadily increasing for some time now. But what’s causing this increase? If your first guess was “racism,” this is one of those rare cases where you would be wrong, though I’m sure somebody suggested it. No, they are going with the other default answer to explain all the world’s ills and blaming climate change. (Wall Street Journal, subscription required)

Pilots and meteorologists say bumps are a normal part of flying. The Federal Aviation Administration is still investigating the Lufthansa flight. But meteorologists say climate change is distorting the jet stream, making a certain type of severe turbulence—called clear-air turbulence—more likely in the future.

Severe turbulence injuries are rare. Between 2009 and 2022, 163 people were seriously injured during turbulence, according to National Transportation Safety Board data. Flight attendants, who are more likely to be standing during flights, are most likely to get injured, the data show.

If you want to listen to actor Matthew McConaughey talk to Kelly Ripa (for some reason) about a flight he was on where turbulence led to hospitalizations, you can do so here. The actor wasn’t hospitalized, but he claimed to see wine glasses “hanging in mid-air” briefly.

The people behind the study claiming that turbulence has been increasing as a result of climate change are meteorologists and physicists, so they’re welcome to weigh in on the topic. But at the same time, plenty of experts have been studying this phenomenon for a long time and most admit that we really don’t have anywhere near a full understanding of how it works.

Still, coming out and flatly stating that “climate change is distorting the jet stream” is a fairly bold claim. For one thing, severe turbulence is reported over most of the planet. It is detected from nearly ground level up to well above typical flight altitudes, often far from any jet stream. It frequently shows up near thunderstorms and above mountain ranges. So unless climate change is making the mountains higher somehow, that’s far too simplistic of an answer.

Airline engineers claim that even severe turbulence isn’t actually “a danger” to passengers because modern planes are built to withstand the worst wind shear that’s ever been observed. But that’s only true for the plane itself, assuming that claim is accurate. The people inside the plane can be thrown around like ragdolls. And flight attendants are the most at risk because they tend to be walking around the passenger compartment for much of the flight.

The only answer being offered by the experts in this study is to tell people to remain in their seats with their seatbelts fastened for as much of the flight as possible. That should keep you locked down and not see you end up crashing into the ceiling. Or you can adopt my solution. Just don’t fly unless you absolutely must. I haven’t been on a plane since before the pandemic and I have no plans for any trips that can’t be managed by automobile travel if I can possibly avoid it.