Climate change could now cause our planet¡¯s atmosphere to rise higher, forcing aircraft to fly at higher altitudes.
Also Read:?Hydrogen Level In Atmosphere Increased 70% To Heat Up Planet, Says Ozone Day Study
This is based on a new study conducted by weather balloon measurements, taken in the Northern Hemisphere, over the past 40 years that have highlighted that the lowest layer of Earth¡¯s atmosphere -- commonly known as the troposphere -- has been expanding at a rate of 50 metres per decade, and climate change is to be blamed for this.?
In case you didn¡¯t know, the troposphere is the layer of the atmosphere that helps us breathe and survive -- extending from sea level to a height ranging from 7 kilometres over the poles to around 20 kilometres over tropical regions.?
This layer of atmosphere is home to a ton of heat and moisture. It is also where a lot of atmospheric weather is present. Air in the atmosphere enlarges and shrinks based on the temperature it¡¯s in, causing the troposphere boundary -- dubbed the tropopause -- to naturally expand and shrink based on seasons.
Looking at atmospheric data like temperature, humidity and pressure which was captured between 20 to 8 degrees north latitude and fusing it with GPS data, researchers highlight that an increasing quantity of greenhouse gases trap more heat in the atmosphere, causing tropopause to rise at levels higher than before.
Also Read:?Earth's Oxygen Level Slowly Dropping Say Scientists, Will Vanish After Billions Of Years
And this rate of rising is only increasing with each passing day. The study reveals that even though tropopause roughly rose to 50 metres per decade around the 1980s and 2000s, between 2001 and 2020, it rose to 53.3 metres.
Even after factoring in natural events that occurred in the region -- two volcanic eruptions in the 1980s and the periodic Pacific warming El Nino in the late 1990s, researchers claim that human activity was responsible for 80 percent of the total increase in the tropopause.?
However, climate change isn't the only human-made contributor to this. The stratosphere -- the layer above the troposphere -- is also shrinking, due to the release of ozone-depleting gases. The gases have contracted the stratosphere with the destruction of the stratospheric ozone layer, although recent restrictions against their emission have caused a drop in atmospheric concentrations of these gases.?
Also Read:?Sun's Atmosphere Is 1 Million Degrees Celsius Hot, And We Finally Know Why
Scientists claim that this could force planes to fly higher in the atmosphere to avoid turbulence, as aircraft normally fly in lower stratospheres. But with increased height of both stratosphere and troposphere, the plane will have to reach higher altitudes to reach the smooth-flying sweet spot.
They explain, "The study captures two important ways that humans are changing the atmosphere. The height of the tropopause is being increasingly affected by emissions of greenhouse gases even as society has successfully stabilized conditions in the stratosphere by restricting ozone-destroying chemicals."
Keep reading?Indiatimes.com?for the latest?science and technology?news.