What causes turbulance?

Question

What causes turbulance?

Answer 1

When someone does'nt know how to use I.M....~lmao~

Answer 2

Turbulence occurs in the boundary areas between dissimilar air masses, where air currents are generated moving in different directions very close together.  Most of the movement is up/down, but these currents can be moving in any direction.

Answer 3

hot air rising and cold air falling

Answer 4

hot and cold air

Answer 5

Aviophage has given you an excellent answer. Give her your points. But just for the fun, here is an example of what you could meet.

Imagine an airfield at the bottom of a valley early in the morning. During the night, cold air has sunk from the surrounding mountains and the air is colder on the ground than up there. It is an inversion: air is not rising. Probably a bit of fog, especially over a lake or river but no wind.

You take off, climb, and suddenly meet turbulent air. Above that, a wind blows from the mountain.

Here the turbulence is the result of two layers, one moving with the wind and the other, not moving.

A bit later that morning, the sun has heated the layer of colder air and fog has dissipated. The wind is still from the mountains. You take off again and notice turbulence. That's the air that passes between the mountains, around the trees, the buildings; it is mechanical turbulence. Not so pleasant.

In the afternoow, with the vecinity of the sea, a sea breeze has established itself; the wind is now blowing from the sea, bringing moist air over the warm land. As it rises, above dew point, it creates those nice cumulus clouds.

You take off for your third flight this day. You notice again turbulence but this time it feels quite different: you are going through the convective cells of air that rises as it is heated on the ground. The turbulence is different; not so hard and sometimes you feel (at least with a light aircraft) that something is pushing you up. Sometimes the 'bubble' lift only one wing or the other.

Last but not least: Rod Machado write in his book that turbulence is like sea waves, only that you can't see them and ... that's what horror movies are made of! :-)

But the comparison is very valid in this respect: You may see a large vessel at sea rolling heavily in the swell when a tiny dinghy simply goes up and down. You may also see dinghies rocking like h**l in a short choppy sea where larger vessels stay motionless.

The same happens in the air. Some forms of turbulence are mostly felt by small and slow aircraft, while others are felt by big planes moving fast at high altitude.