Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg faulted climate change for the increase in severe turbulence on commercial airline flights while citing estimates that it has shot up by double digits over recent decades.
Buttigieg, 42, contended that top officials will need to “reevaluate” protocols for handling those severe weather events in the future and that the US will need to bolster its domestic infrastructure.
“The reality is, the effects of climate change are already upon us in terms of our transportation,” Buttigieg told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
“We’ve seen that in the form of everything from heat waves that shouldn’t statistically even be possible threatening to melt the cables of transit systems in the Pacific Northwest,” he went on before citing “indications that turbulence is up by about 15%.”
A 2019 study in Nature concluded that vertical shear in jet streams spiked 15% from the late 1970s.
Last Tuesday, Singapore Airlines flight SQ321 from London to Singapore encountered severe turbulence which injured over 30 passengers and is believed to have led to the death of a British man from a suspected heart attack.
Read the full story from the New York Post
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