It’s getting too hot for airplanes to travel the skies now

An airplane approaching the runway at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport during a heat wave on July 15. Extreme heat makes flying airplanes much more difficult. — Getty Images/TNS

LEST you think air travel could not possibly get more miserable, climate change is here to prove you wrong.

Just as extreme heat makes people sluggish and unproductive at best, and threatens human life at worst, it also makes flying airplanes much more difficult. Hot air is less dense than cold air, its molecules zipping around at higher speeds, meaning planes have less lift when the mercury rises. That makes it harder for them to take off and stay aloft.