What is turbulence and why do we get it just from flying through clouds?

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ScoobyDoo2006

Good question! Turbulence is the irregular motion of air; uneven currents of air. Clouds have a different density. It is like driving your car on a bumpy road. Air has different motions/currents in different spots, much like pot holes in a road. Generally speaking, flying thru turbulence is safe. It can feel scary, but it is generally regarded as safe. Keep your seat belt buckled!

pecker_head_bill

turbulence is caused by unstable air at altitude and sometimes by wind blowing over terrain at lower altitudes. Column's of air rising and falling due to temperature differential from various surfaces on the earth will create turbulence as well. At altitude weather phenomenon is usually the catalyst for turbulence, frontal passage , jet stream winds, all add to the mix where the air becomes unstable. Watch a cumulus nimbus cloud boil in the summertime, with in that cloud are serious up and down drafts which create turbulence. Pressure changes do accrue with areas of pressure differential clashing. The clouds offer a unique visual presentation of the phenomenon.

try this link for more information

http://www.casa.gov.au/airsafe/trip/turbulen.htm

dcall2

Turbulence is the event that occurs when you have the uneven heating of air. Warm air rises, and is replaced by cold air. It is not an even process. because of this stirring, we experience "air pockets" or turbulent air.
The reason you seem to experience it more in clouds, is because of the nature of cloud building. which is the condensation of water vapor, (clouds) as a result of the two different temperatures of air colliding. You are correct in thinking some cloud formations make for a rougher ride in a plane.

Questions&Answers

Turbulence
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In fluid dynamics, turbulence or turbulent flow is a flow regime characterized by chaotic, stochastic property changes. This includes low momentum diffusion, high momentum convection, and rapid variation of pressure and velocity in space and time. Flow that is not turbulent is called laminar flow. The (dimensionless) Reynolds number characterizes whether flow conditions lead to laminar or turbulent flow; e.g. for pipe flow, a Reynolds number above about 2300 will be turbulent. The statistical description of turbulent flow was suggested by the Russian mathematician Andrey Kolmogorov; this description is known to be approximate at best.

Consider the flow of water over a simple smooth object, such as a sphere. At very low speeds the flow is laminar, i.e., the flow is smooth (though it may involve vortices on a large scale). As the speed increases, at some point the transition is made to turbulent ("chaotic") flow. In turbulent flow, unsteady vortices appear on many scales and interact with each other. Drag due to boundary layer skin friction increases. The structure and location of boundary layer separation often changes, sometimes resulting in a reduction of overall drag. Because laminar-turbulent transition is governed by Reynolds number, the same transition occurs if the size of the object is gradually increased, or the viscosity of the fluid is decreased, or if the density of the fluid is increased.

Turbulence causes the formation of eddies which are defined by the Kolmogorov length scale and a turbulent diffusion coefficient. In large bodies of water like oceans this coefficient can be found using Richardson's four-third power law and is governed by the random walk principle. In rivers and large ocean currents, the diffusion coefficient is given by variations of Elder's formula.

When designing piping systems, turbulent flow requires a higher input of energy from a pump (or fan) than laminar flow. However, for applications such as heat exchangers and reaction vessels, turbulent flow is essential for good heat transfer and mixing.

Examples of turbulence
A jet exhausting from a nozzle into a quiescent fluid. As the flow emerges into this external fluid, shear layers originating at the lips of the nozzle are created. These layers separate the fast moving jet from the external fluid, and at a certain critical Reynolds number they become unstable and break down to turbulence.
Smoke rising from a cigarette. for the first few centimetres it remains laminar, and then becomes unstable and turbulent. Similarly, the dispersion of pollutants in the atmosphere is governed by turbulent processes.
Flow over a golf ball. (This can be best understood by considering the golf ball to be stationary, with air flowing over it.) If the golf ball were smooth, the boundary layer flow over the front of the sphere would be laminar at typical conditions. However, the boundary layer would separate early, as the pressure gradient switched from favorable (pressure decreasing in the flow direction) to unfavorable (pressure increasing in the flow direction), creating a large region of low pressure behind the ball that creates high form drag. To prevent this from happening, the surface is dimpled to perturb the boundary layer and promote transition to turbulence. This results in higher skin friction, but moves the point of boundary layer separation further along, resulting in lower form drag and lower overall drag.
The mixing of warm and cold air in the atmosphere by wind, which causes poor astronomical seeing (the blurring of images seen through the atmosphere)
Most of the terrestrial atmospheric circulation
The oceanic and atmospheric mixed layers and intense oceanic currents.
The flow conditions in many industrial equipment (such as pipes, ducts, precipitators, gas scrubbers, etc.) and machines (for instance, internal combustion engines and gas turbines).
The external flow over all kind of vehicles such as cars, airplanes, ships and submarines.
The motions of matter in stellar atmospheres.
According to an apocryphal story, Werner Heisenberg was asked what he would ask God, given the opportunity. His reply was: "When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe he will have an answer for the first." A similar witticism has been attributed to Horace Lamb (who had published a noted text book on Hydrodynamics)â€”his choice being quantum mechanics (instead of relativity) and turbulence. Lamb was quoted as saying in a speech to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, "I am an old man now, and when I die and go to heaven there are two matters on which I hope for enlightenment. One is quantum electrodynamics, and the other is the turbulent motion of fluids. And about the former I am rather optimistic."

Robert H

All weather phenomena is caused by heat exchange. That is why you can have CAT (clear air turbulence) as well as turbulence in clouds. Close to the ground the wind blowing over obstructions on the surface also causes turbulence.

s t

it is a change in atmospheric pressure.

palazzolojr

Certain types of clouds contain ice crystals. If you fly through enough, then you feel turbulence. Turbulence refers to any jostling or shaking while in an airlplane and flying at crusing altitude

Mary S

the turbulence when you fly comes from air pockets in the sky and clouds where the air density is the highest along with the moisture, this occurs at higher altitudes and when dropping into a lower one.

Pia

Turbulence is random flow. Think of a cigarette smoke stream. Close to the source, it is laminar, or somewhat flat. Then it breaks into all sorts of loops. Flying through clouds, if there are air pockets like those in the cigarette smoke, will make the plane react accordingly, as it is not sliding on laminar (or "flat") flow of air...

GUILLERMO U

You get more turbulence when passing through clouds because of the density of the cloud and the fact that it contains rain or water particles. It is also cooler and it tends to push the plane down. One of the most dangerous clouds for planes is what is called a lenticular cloud and looks like a flat lens, they have very unstable air which causes wind shear as well.

ArgumentativeButNotInsulting

Turbulence is currents in the air. You get it in clouds and clear skies.

suspendor

Turbulence is really not understood very well even by scientists. It involves uneven heating of the atmosphere, which happens more around clouds that tend to block sunlight. But it also comes from vortices formed both from air movements and from the passage of other aircraft through the air. Vortices are formed at the wingtips of all modern aircraft. Those little winglets you see on the newer planes are designed to minimize it, but it's still there. Hope that helps.

Fresh choice

jazzsax18

turbulence is God's way of saying "y'all are smart enough to fly, but don't forget who's boss - and whose house you're in right now!"

rottentothecore

actually you do not get turbulence from just flying through
clouds,you can also get turbulence just flying though air
with no clouds.

turbulence is like a pocket of air,that is negative,and all
the rest would be positive.

positive air holds the plane up,and negative air would
let the plane drop.

clouds are a mixture of positive and negative air,
so yes you would obviously experience turbulence
in clouds or storms.

but you can also experience turbulence when they are
no clouds around.

Fraspas

Turbulence is basically a stream of air in irregular motion that normally cannot be seen and often occurs unexpectedly. It can be created by a number of different conditions. The most common encounter is flying in the vicinity of thunderstorm. In fact, a flight through a patch of cloud will often jostle the airplane. Flying over mountainous area with a prevailing wind is another major cause of air turbulence. Other causes come from flying near to jet streams at high altitude, in a frontal system or where temperature changes in any air mass in the sky.

The severity of air turbulence can be basically described as light, medium, severe or extreme. Flying through a medium turbulence is no more dangerous than a traveling along a gravel road in a bus or coach. Severe turbulence can be very uncomfortable but it would not cause the aircraft to break up.

star*of*elo

turbulence is when the plane dips, drops and or shakes. You get it when your in the clouds because turbulane is caused by wind, so clouds are around wind = turbullence

HEY HOW ARE YA

Turbulence is irregular atmospheric motion especially when characterized by up-and-down currents. You have it when flying because the plane in causing irregular atmospheric motion.

THE MAN

turbulance is what when an aircraft suffers stability issues when it flys frm a lowpressure area to a highpressure regions-these regions are called airpockets

bookish

It does have to do with changes in air pressure and temperature. Warm air rises, cools off and starts sinking. Air rushes into low pressure areas, creating wind.

3-selin

Make a paper airplane.... glue it to a peice of string.. fly it with the fan off...Now fly it with the fan on .....This is your Answer...

J&C H

Heat rises from the earth, clouds cool the heat. You would be turbulent too being pushed and pulled so much.

steelmadison

pockets of less/more dense air,,,, wind direction changes are far more sporadic and numerous the closer you get to the ground..... and within the level of clouds. its where the jet streams meet each other and interact essentially.

that's why jets fly above 20k feet..... the wind and air is less volatile at higher altitudes...... and is why there is more turbulence when the plane comes in low for landing, and taking off.

Jessika

air pockets dumby

luvz2puff

It's just god swatting flys....

beelzebub_1989

As Turbulences we know every stream not moving the same direction as the majority of the material around it.
This is everywhere human buildings, like planes, subs or skyscrapers fly/swim/grow. This causes the "mainstream" (I'm German, you see?) to take other ways - along these buildings. This is why we have to create our transportations as aero-dynamic as possible - to avoid turbulences, little whirls of air, for example. These ones are blamed for the "air resistance" everything has.
And beyond every cloud there are strong up- and fallwinds - reasonned e.g. by temperature differences etc. Within the cloud they do not stop - clouds are only water steam - they go on, sometimes become even stronger (noticed in thunderstorms, twisters and hurricanes) - and these vertical streamings we know as "turbulences" when flying.
Interesting, that something "soft" like air can cause humans to avoid meals with peas in the air...

milton1007

it crossing a jet stream making it a bumping ride

marvin

Turbulence are created whenever anything moves through anything else, (boat through water, kite in the air). When an airplane moves it is creating turbulences all the time, not just through the clouds. The clouds make it easier for us to see the moving air, that's all.

dinochirus

Read the book James and the Giant Peach.
It explains a lot about the cloud men and how irritable they are.

Have you ever been acosted by white paint-like? It's another way they attack intruders.

adam H

there is a ton of wind and weather up at those altitudes so a plane can make sudden dips and drops , rising and falling while speeding through the wind ...........they call it turbulance , I call it scary as heck .............

sha scrilla

its the bumpy road in the sky

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