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maxwell demon [soylentnews.org] writes:

No, I didn't get the headline wrong. While you surely have heard that aviation is bad for global warming, this is about the reverse: Climate change could make it harder for airplanes to get liftoff. [gizmodo.com] From the article:

As air gets hotter, it gets less dense, and this can spell trouble for aircraft. Thin air can't generate enough lift and thrust to get a plane safely airborne within the fixed length of a runway. If it's too hot, airplanes will have to shed pounds, in the form of passengers and cargo, according to a study from Columbia University.

As the climate gets hotter, airports may have to adapt:

Airports might have to put in longer runways, or flights may have to be shifted to cooler parts of the day. The study, which was published in the journal Weather Climate Society and presented at the American Geophysical Union meeting this week, forces us to reckon with yet another niggling consequence of climate change.

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