Jessica P. 2026 | BASIS Independent McLean
- Project Title: Effect of Seasonal Changes of the Northern Polar Jetstream on Eastward Transatlantic Flight Times
- BASIS Independent Advisor: Kavita Sharma
Climate change is doing more than just making the world hotter. It affects weather patterns such as the Northern Polar Jetstream, which is used by trans-Atlantic flights to increase efficiency. It is my project to research the possible effect of the seasonal changes of the Northern Polar Jetstream on the flight efficiency of flights from the JFK airport in New York to the London Heathrow airport in London. I hypothesize that data may show a seasonal shift between speeds at which the airplane approaches the Northern Polar Jetstream, which is important, as that shows that climate change will have a massive impact on the overall efficiency of transatlantic flights.
My Posts
Week 5: Welcome Back!
April 13, 2026
It’s been a while since I have surfaced on my blog. Unfortunately, this is because I was dealing with surgery recovery and such over the last multiple weeks. As such, I was not able to produce a blog for the last few weeks. Fortunately, this week has been more productive than the last few. I […]
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Week 2: Data Sources and Factors Impacting Flight Times
March 16, 2026
Greetings, everyone and welcome back to my blog! This week I have extended my research more. I perused multiple websites, like flightaware.com and flightradar24.com to determine the best method for finding flights on the Boeing 777-200 from JFK in New York City to LHR in London. I found the most success with FlightAware, as their […]
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Week 1: First Research Steps
March 9, 2026
Welcome once more! My Senior Project progress this week has been less than ideal, unfortunately, but that by itself can be a learning experience. I reached out to a possible connection for an internship and looked into George Mason’s Center for Air Transportation Systems Research (CATSR), which does research very closely related to the research […]
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Introduction
March 4, 2026
Welcome! My Senior Project topic focuses on one of the possible impacts of climate change—more specifically, how shifts in the Northern Polar Jetstream impact transatlantic flights from JFK to LHR on the Boeing 777-200. What brought me to my project was mainly my passion for planes, but also a passion for sustainability. As I am […]
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