Jet Streams in Aviation Management

Running head: AVIATION MANAGEMENT-JET STREAMS 1
Jet Streams
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AVIATION MANAGEMENT-JET STREAMS 2
Jet Streams
Jet streams refer to ribbons of air that move at exceptionally high speeds from west to
east across the globe (Lesley, 2014). They are less than a mile in thickness and more than a mile
long, they travel at speed greater than a hundred miles per hour. As they move at this very high
speeds, their paths constantly keep changing in shape resulting to the masses of air and weather
pattern along them being carried as if they were a piece of wood trapped in a stream of water
(Gössling & Upham, 2009) . Jet streams are majorly common in the northern hemisphere but they
do exist in the southern hemisphere as well. They are formed between troposphere and
stratosphere; this region is known as tropopause.
Types of Jet Streams
There exist two types of jet streams namely; the polar jet stream and the subtropical jet
stream (Lesley, 2014). The polar jet streams are situated in the polar front at 60 degrees’ latitude
and 7-12km above the sea level. This region is the frontier of warmer, moist air to the south and
the dry, most air to the north. The subtropical jet streams form at 30 degrees’ altitude and 10-
16km above sea level. The polar jet streams are stronger than the subtropical jet streams.
Figure 1:Jet Streams in the Northern Hemisphere