Technological Adaptation Outpaces Climate Impacts on Aviation: Evidence from Three Decades of Warming

Climate impact assessments frequently prioritize projections over empirical validation of operational outcomes. We introduce and apply a generalizable empirical validation framework that (i) separates operational encounters from safety outcomes and (ii) tests climate → operations linkages via physical mechanism validation with explicit detectability bounds. Using 33 years (1991–2023) of U.S. aviation data (NTSB, ASRS) normalized by exposure and coupled with NASA GISTEMP and ERA5 reanalysis, we find: encounters with turbulence and convective weather increased, yet turbulence accident outcomes declined by approximately 85% (from ~0.32 to 0.05 per 100,000 flight hours). A mechanism test shows weak coupling between global temperature anomalies and North American winter vertical wind shear (r = 0.09, p = 0.316), within detectable limits given the sample size. Together, these results indicate that technological and operational improvements appear to outpace modest climate signals within the observed warming (+0.7 °C), constituting a surprising null result for safety outcomes during recent warming. The framework’s anti–p-hacking safeguards (pre-specification, full temporal coverage, stationarity discipline, and mechanism validation) provide standards for adaptation evidence. We discuss implications for prioritizing adaptation investments and aligning assessments with IPCC WGII risk framing. Limitations include U.S.-only scope and observational design; future work should test cross-region generalizability and higher-warming scenarios (+2–4 °C).