7 different types of turbulence and how pilots navigate this nuisance while flying

New reports warn air turbulence could become more common because of climate change, but according to experts, turbulence isn't usually something for airline passengers to worry about.

Air turbulence is air movement created by atmospheric pressure, jet streams, air around mountains, cold or warm weather fronts or thunderstorms. There are a number of different types of turbulence and it can be unexpected and happen when the sky appears to be clear.

According to airline pilot, curator of AskThePilot.com and author of Cockpit Confidential, Patrick Smith, conditions might be annoying and uncomfortable, but the plane is not going to crash.

"Turbulence is an aggravating nuisance for everybody, including the crew, but it’s also, for lack of a better term, normal. From a pilot’s perspective, it is ordinarily seen as a convenience issue, not a safety issue," Smith said.

Occasionally, turbulence has been responsible for injuries. For instance, passengers were injured flying over the Sierra Nevada in February 2019. However, most turbulence is well within what planes are designed to fly through and will not cause the plane to crash.

When a flight changes altitude in search of smoother conditions, Smith said this is by and large in the interest of comfort.

"The pilots aren’t worried about the wings falling off; they’re trying to keep their customers relaxed and everybody’s coffee where it belongs. Planes themselves are engineered to take a remarkable amount of punishment," Smith said.

"Avoiding turbulence is a combination of art and science. We take our cues from weather charts, radar returns and those real-time reports from other aircraft. Larger carriers have their own meteorology departments, and we get periodic updates from the ground," Smith said.

AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Jack Boston said even though you can't see turbulence, it can be predicted on a radar.

"Specialized hi-res doppler radar called TDWR (Terminal doppler weather radar) have been installed at/near numerous airports to detect sudden development of wind shear, which is a sudden change in wind direction or speed. Wind shear can threaten aircraft crashes at relatively low altitudes, during take-offs, approaches and landings," Boston said.

Smith explained wake turbulence further and said it is something you can hear from inside the aircraft.

"With aircraft, this effect is exacerbated by a pair of vortices that spin from the wingtips. At the wings’ outermost extremities, the higher-pressure air beneath is drawn toward the lower pressure air on top, resulting in a tight, circular flow that trails behind the aircraft like a pronged pair of sideways tornadoes," Smith said.

The vortices are most pronounced when a plane is slow and the wings are working hardest to produce lift. Therefore, Smith said the prime time for an encountering them is during approach or departure.

"When pilots pass on reports to other crews, turbulence is graded from light to extreme," Smith said.

Over the whole history of modern commercial aviation, the number of jetliner crashes caused by turbulence, even indirectly, can be counted on one hand, according to Smith.

"Each year worldwide, about a hundred people, half of them flight attendants, are hurt by turbulence seriously enough to require medical attention — head, neck, shoulder and ankle injuries being the most common," Smith said.

According to Smith, that works out to about 50 passengers out of the roughly 2 billion passengers who fly each year.

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