Turbulence has long been considered a priority problem for commercial airlines as it is the single greatest cause of injuries to flight attendants and passengers as well as causing structural damage to the aircraft. Because turbulence is a small-scale phenomenon with length scales of tens to hundreds of meters, it is difficult to observe with traditional systems, models or satellites. It is possible to use satellites to measure larger scale features leading to clear air or convectively induced turbulence. Scientists at NCAR, UAH and UW CIMSS have developed a number of such turbulence applications and are now conducting research to integrate them into expert systems and weather models to produce warning products. One such product is the Graphical Turbulence Guidance (GTG) product developed at NCAR by Dr. Robert Sharman, who leads the FAA AWRP Turbulence Product Development Team.

Two common sources of turbulence are from breaking waves associated with flow over mountains and other terrain and tropospause folding, where the lower boundary of the stratosphere intrudes into the troposphere. ASAP has developed an automated mountain wave identification algorithm for clouds and water vapor features that can be used with GOES or MODIS imagery. Also, an ASAP turbulence prediction tool that effectively identifies instabilities in and near tropopause folds has been developed utilizing upper tropospheric-specific humidity products derived from the GOES water vapor channel and corrected for satellite viewing angle and temperature.