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Berlin Tegel Airport, Europe snow chaos December 2010

Like tens of thousands of travellers across Europe, I got stuck at Berlin’s Tegel airport (TXL) for more than 10 hours on my way from Miami to Munich, Germany just a few days ago. Leaving Miami on a sunny day with temperatures well above 70 degrees, I arrived in Berlin about 9.5 hours later, hoping to make it to Munich within a little more than an hour. Instead of a quick transfer, I had to spend 9 hours more than expected in the terminal of Berlin’s major airport - which is expected to close in 2012 when Berlin’s brand new capital airport BBI (Berlin Brandenburg International) is scheduled to open. At the beginning, the atmosphere was rather relaxed with few people crowding the 1960s style terminal and cabs waiting outside in the snow for passengers headed to downtown.

However, as I was waiting in the departure area seeing dozens of domestic flights being cancelled as the snow kept falling, the once close-to-empty departure lounge filled with passengers and frustration spread quickly. Except for the operators of delis and kiosks, few people seemed to be in a good mood anymore. As many hours passed without a departing flight and the sun set, there was barely any space left for people to stand and except for one representative of the airport’s staff who couldn’t help anyone and asked passengers to check the airlines’ websites for information on flights, frustration and rumors spread. My only source of information was a relative who updated me on what it said on my airline’s website and I had to stay in my place since I didn’t want to loose my seat while the departure date of my flight was pushed back numerous times from 10.15am to 9pm.

After 10 hours of waiting I was among the lucky few of the waiting passengers that got a seat on the last flight allowed to leave Berlin that night. I shook my head in disbelief when I had to hear the captain’s excuse for another delay of our departure: Apparently there was only one baggage handler set aside for our aircraft even though only a hand full of flights departed from TXL instead on the usual 400 or so aircraft arriving and departing. The low number of flights departing that day ensured that we quickly went through deicing and were ready to take off, despite the chronically scarce deicing chemicals.

When I made it to Munich that same day shortly before midnight, I was happy that I finally reached my destination even though my luggage didn’t make it to there, given all the chaos in European air travel I learned about reading a left-behind newspaper while standing in the baggage tracing line.

Altogether I can consider myself lucky. A friend of mine got stuck in Frankfurt for 20+ hours. Any traveler going through London Heathrow inevitably had to change their travel plans as the airport closed down completely due to a mere 4 inches of snow. The airports in the Paris metropolitan area also had to cancel most flights scheduled to depart. Train service in most of northern and central Europe was disrupted as well. In Berlin, rental car companies were unable to satisfy demand since a newly passed law required cars to have snow tires given wintery weather conditions and the number of snow tires stored was quickly depleted. Also, driving conditions were poor. Icy roads led to countless accidents, long traffic jams formed on several highways. In some parts of Germany, classes were cancelled.

What is unusual about the current situation is that primarily areas that normally don’t get a lot of snow, at least not during this time of the year, were affected severely and obviously were not prepared to deal with snow. In other areas where snow is usually more abundant, travel was less affected and snow levels were lower than on average.

What could be an explanation for these weather anomalies?

In the face of an uncommon amount of snow or much colder than usual temperatures, I hear people joke about how much they wish global warming was actually happening so they wouldn’t have to clear the sidewalk in front of their house from all the snow. It is in these situations when we need to remember that “global warming” is actually a bad term to describe what is happening to our climate as a result of the unprecedented increase in the levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere since the onset of the Industrial Revolution. Rather than increasing temperatures in general, we will see changes and anomalies that will change average temperatures, precipitation, the frequency of extreme weather events, etc. Some places might experience a decrease in average temperatures and rainfall while others will face more frequent droughts and hotter summers. While global average temperatures are generally increasing which causes catastrophic effects in coastal areas around the world in the long run, local impacts of climate change can vary widely and also could benefit certain areas.

This winter’s travel chaos in northern central Europe is most likely an indicator of a changing climate and how it changes weather patterns. Since my childhood, I witnessed how the amount of snow in southern Germany gradually decreased and how winter shifted from December through March to January through April. While when I was younger, lots of snow for at least three months was common, nowadays periods of above-average temperatures and a lack of snow occur frequently. This causes frequent difficulties for nearby winter sport resorts. On the other hand, relatives of mine who live on the shore of the Baltic sea experienced white Christmas in recent years which they had not seen in decades.

If you are interested in learning more about my research about climate change, energy politics and alternative energy technologies, take a look at my research paper research-paper_new-energy-age-staedtler-2010

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 21st, 2010 at 5:50 PM and is filed under Environment, RP: New Energy Age, myVIEW. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.