Science Daily July 12, 2023
Although clear air turbulence (CAT) generation in the free atmosphere has been studied by high-resolution numerical simulations, few studies simulated aircraft-scale turbulence eddies and validated them with high-frequency airborne observation. Researchers in Japan used a regional numerical weather prediction model to simulate the event with fine resolution. They compared the onboard-recorded data with the virtual flight data, to confirm that turbulent eddies were reasonably reproduced. The CAT was largely generated by breaking Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) instability waves in the free atmosphere. They resolved the KH waves and their breaking. When the resolution was finer, the turbulent eddies were stronger, causing meteorological effects on the airplanes. According to the researchers their simulation will help improve the forecasting of clear air turbulence… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
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(a) Surface weather map at 12:00 UTC on 30 December 2020… Credit: Geophysical Letters, Volume50, Issue12, 28 June 2023, e2022GL101286