What do turbulence mean

And when is it considered dangerous? Turbulence is mainly caused by weather changes; wind and pressure are the major reasons behind it. Most of us already know that. But how and why does it occur? We will try to answer these questions here and learn the true meaning of turbulence and the reasons behind it.

The first thing you should be aware of is that turbulence is a normal occurrence in air travel. Just like you meet some bumps on the road while you drive, a plane meets some air bumps while it flies in the air. So even though turbulence is the number one concern for many travelers, it almost never puts the aircraft in jeopardy. We have to admit that it makes passengers uncomfortable many times though.

Simply put, turbulence is a coverall term for instability in the air in which the plane is flying that can be caused by many reasons. Air moves in river like formations called jet streams. Save Word. Definition of turbulence. Examples of turbulence in a Sentence The plane hit quite a bit of turbulence during our flight.

A period of turbulence preceded the riots. Recent Examples on the Web Revered Detroit jazz musicians Wendell Harrison and Pamela Wise will debut an ambitious new work Friday that reflects the political and social turbulence of the last two years.

First Known Use of turbulence , in the meaning defined above. Learn More About turbulence. Time Traveler for turbulence The first known use of turbulence was in See more words from the same year. Style: MLA. Disorderly air associated with jet streams—the narrow, meandering bands of swift winds located near the poles—is caused by differences in wind velocities as an aircraft moves away from regions of maximum wind speeds.

The decelerating winds create shear regions that are prone to turbulence. The rapid growth of storm clouds pushes air away, generating waves in the atmosphere that can break up into turbulence hundreds to even thousands of miles away, says Robert Sharman, a turbulence researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research NCAR.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, passengers and crew were reported injured by turbulence between and Though weather forecasts and pilot reports are helpful for avoiding bumpy zones, they are relatively blunt tools, Sharman says. Using data on forward velocity, wind speed, air pressure, roll angle, and other factors, the algorithm generates a local atmospheric turbulence level, which is fed back into a national system every minute. Used in conjunction with national weather forecasts and models, the tool annotates forecasts with real-time conditions, which in turn helps to strengthen weather prediction models.

Over 12, Delta Airlines pilots currently use tablets loaded with the tool to check conditions along their flight paths. In addition to the domestic planes currently equipped with the algorithm, international carriers including Qantas, Air France and Lufthansa will also join in.

And Boeing has begun to offer the algorithm as a purchase option for new aircraft, Sharman says. This observing strategy is a breakthrough for us. This composite image was created at London Heathrow Airport's runway 09L between 7 a. Mornings at Heathrow are typically some of the busiest times for arriving aircraft, as waves of widebody jets from Asia and North America complete their long haul flights to London.

Part of the anxiety around turbulence is the fear of the aircraft failing. Monitoring for maintenance issues has improved as well: onboard sensors keep track of components known to be vulnerable to fatigue, and flag that part for inspection or replacement. Could airplane design be changed to eliminate the experience of turbulence altogether? Smith says likely not, at least in the near term.

A large statistical database has been obtained which provides considerable insight to the structural and transport properties of thermally stratified turbulence. The presence of active small-scale turbulence appears responsible for the continuing isotropy of the smallest eddies. Thus, the data could be helpful in evaluating or formulating a wave theory of turbulence.

The turbulence energy balance is examined, including the separate effects of vertical diffusion of pressure and local kinetic energy. See all examples of turbulence. These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

Translations of turbulence in Chinese Traditional. See more. Need a translator? Translator tool. What is the pronunciation of turbulence? Browse turbojet. Test your vocabulary with our fun image quizzes. Image credits.