How coronavirus flight reductions are impacting weather data

Apr 16 2020, 11:25 pm

Fewer planes in the sky because of the COVID-19 pandemic means less weather data, and meteorologists are relying more on satellites to make weather predictions these days, according to Environment Canada.

Richard Hogue, executive director of national prediction development with the agency, said the data gap isn’t big enough at the moment for Canadians to notice less accurate weather reports, but said they’re “monitoring the situation closely.”

“We still have quite a bit of aircraft flying, although less than usual,” Hogue told Daily Hive in a phone interview. “It’s enough to sustain a good observing system and we’ve been implementing some mitigation efforts which are helping out.”

us-airlines-address-coronavirus-concerns

Lukas Wunderlich/Shutterstock

When commercial flights takeoff and land, they record temperature and wind data that helps weather experts create a three-dimensional model of the atmosphere, Hogue explained.

With the aviation industry in a tailspin because of global advisories not to travel during the pandemic, only a quarter of the usual number of planes are in the sky around the world, Hogue said. That reduction is more pronounced in Europe and less so in North America, he added. Here, there’s about half as much air traffic as usual.

A reduction in flights doesn’t correlate in a linear manner to a reduction in weather data, since many planes flying along the same route provide redundant data, Hogue said. Weather data gathered over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans is more important than data gathered over continents since there are more ways to gather weather data on land.

At this point, we haven’t yet crossed the threshold where the lack of aircraft data has a meaningful impact on meteorologist’s ability to forecast, Hogue said. But we may get there. When volcanic eruptions in Iceland sent plumes of ash into the atmosphere for several months in 2010, a prolonged lack of flights noticeably impacted forecasts in Europe.

weather balloon

A weather balloon/Shutterstock

Right now, meteorologists are leaning on data provided by satellites, radar, weather balloons, and other observations methods. Supercomputing stations use all that weather data to calculate models that meteorologists use when making weather forecasts.

Canada has 31 sites across the country where weather balloons are launched twice per day to collect data. In France, they’re now launching balloons four times per day instead of twice to make up for the lack of flight data, Hogue said. Canada isn’t there yet, but our forecasters have started incorporating more data from satellites and using data from smaller or commercial flights that wouldn’t normally feed into the model.

Weather forecasts are important in day-to-day life for planning your commute, what to wear, or even if you should go outside at all. But their accuracy becomes critical when there are extreme weather events, Hogue said. It’s important for meteorologists to warn people about big storms, tornadoes, or damaging particulate matter during a wildfire season.

“Currently, there’s no sign of reduction in forecast quality,” he said.

 

 

 

Megan DevlinMegan Devlin

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