How planes REALLY get from New York to London: Stunning animation reveals hows wind affects routes - and how climate change will make it worse

- Simulation plots variations in eastbound journey across the Atlantic
- These flight routes change depending on jet stream wind patterns
- These winds will strengthen with climate change, affecting flight times

Cheyenne Macdonald | Daily Mail | 26 August 2016

Flying from one airport to the next, a plane's journey across the ocean may seem uniform, but depending on the wind, they path it takes to get there can vary greatly.

An atmospheric scientist has created a new visualization to show how a trip from New York to London changes with each day based on jet stream patterns.

And, the expert says the work has implications for future flights as climate change threatens to intensify turbulence and add time to round-trip journeys.

The simulation was shared on Reddit by Dr. Paul Williams, a scientist at the University of Reading.

Using data from a paper published recently to the journal Environmental Research Letters, Williams plotted the eastbound path of a transatlantic flight, from JFK Airport in New York to Heathrow Airport in London.

It may come as no surprise that the flight path does not follow a straight line, as a result of the Earth's curvature, but the animation reveals just how much these routes can fluctuate based on the jet stream wind patterns.

Starting at JFK airport will put all planes at a latitude of about 40 degrees north at first, but the ensuing flight can follow a minimum-time route that reaches nearly 55 degrees mid-way through the trip, or one that only goes as high as 51 degrees, at its endpoint.

And, there is a multitude of routes in between; in the study, the researcher mapped 90 lines that represent minimum-time routes each for eastbound and westbound flights.

'In the pre-industrial control simulation, westbound flights generally take longer than eastbound flights, as expected from the prevailing winds,' Williams writes.

'Although the great circle journey time in still air is 6 h 09 min, the mean eastbound journey time is around half an hour shorter at 5 h 38 min, and the mean westbound journey time is around half an hour longer at 6 h 40 min.'

With the control routes in mind, the researcher was then able to demonstrate how journeys will change with the increasing atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, as prevailing jet-stream winds become stronger.

'Aircraft do not fly through a vacuum, but through an atmosphere whose meteorological characteristics are changing because of global warming,' Williams explains in the paper.

'The impacts of aviation on climate change have long been recognised, but the impacts of climate change on aviation have only recently begun to emerge. These impacts include intensified turbulence and increased take-off weight restrictions.'

The analysis revealed that eastbound flights may shorten by roughly four minutes if CO2 concentration doubles, while the westbound route will be about five minutes longer.

Based on this, the scientist says there is likely to be an increase in record-breaking eastbound crossing times in the decades to come - while delays to arrivals in North America will become more common.