>> moving forward, finding solutions. this is abc7news. >> you are watching getting answers on abc seven. we talk with experts on issues important to the bay area and get answers in real-time. san francisco cracking down on drug dealers and drug users. is the city getting serious on the epidemic? even as a major conference comes down, hotels are defaulting on loans. we will talk with mayor london breed about the issues facing her city.

are robo taxis ready for primetime? our media partner has -- killed a dog recently after hitting it. was it a technology failure or unavoidable accident? what is the recent record? we will need your votes on this, so stay tuned and keep devices nearby. if there is a summer trip coming up that requires fine, get ready for a bumpy ride. turbulence is getting worse due to climate change. that is the subject of an in-depth report we aired yesterday. abc7 weather anchor spencer christian story. >> using satellite data, researchers estimated a specific kind of turbulence has increased by 15% in areas along the earth's jet stream. what is ahead for pilots and passengers? >> i believe the studies are valid, we need to do more experiments to verify. >> fred bar as is the department

chair for aviation and information technology at san francisco state university. using a wind tunnel and heating pad, he gave us a look at what happens when changes in temperature create windshear. >> you can see vibration of the plane, meaning turbulence is being created and it is moving up and down. as the earth is warming up, it hits the air, and the air goes up. >> it can trigger clear air turbulence. unpredictable stretches of air at high altitudes not caused by storms. >> spencer christian joins us to talk more about his very timely story. >> i'm feeling bet i'm getting over my sneezes and sniffles. probably tomorrow i will be back in studio. >> i can't wait to have you back. i feel you are close by. thank you for taking the time. we both fly.

you fly more than me. was it a topic you had thought about for a long time to do a story on? >> that is true, i have thought about this for a long time. i fly a lot. for years, a couple of decades, i have had conversations with pilots and other crewmembers, flight attendants, about what i have noticed in my experience flying to be more frequent occurrences of clear air turbulence and more severe turbulence than i recall having experienced in earlier times. they all agree, a flight attendant, they say they are having more frequent occurrences of this and it is getting more severe. our producer and i looked into it and we came up with this report. >> it is such a great report. you get into the science behind it.

is it just me getting terrified in my old age, but you see realvideo. >> someone who studies the atmosphere day for work, it was conclusion based on anecdotal evidence the warming atmosphere, global warming or climate change is a major contributing factor to this. it has been pretty much a unanimous opinion along atmospheric scientists that rising temperatures and larger volumes of warm air rising into colder air in the upper atmosphere, they are contributing to more turbulence. >> i love how much i learned watching this piece. talking about turbulence when there is a big storm, you had a typhoon in the region, i also knew that when you fly over

mountains, the denver area, that gets bumpy. but the clear turbulence, are we saying the planet warms, we have more of this warm air colliding with cold air? >> that is what the scientists are telling us. larger volumes of warm air rising into higher levels of out smear -- atmospheric -- noticed a couple of decades ago. the warm air rising into the colder air currents in the higher atmosphere. speed and direction. those because clear air turbulence. one way the pil can avoid this is to fly outside of the jet stream. inside the jet stream, they need to move faster, you arrive at your destination sooner. but if you fly outside the jet stream, you move more slowly, you burn more fuel, and you put

more pollutants into the atmosphere and contribute to global warming. >> that is a tough choice. you have to balance it as you select your route. i'm imagining the weather maps with the jet stream's. does it mean -- i picture more in the northern hemisphere. in the southern hemisphere you are not affected by the turbulence due to global warming? >> it appears to be happening globally. the increase in turbulence. we have only studied what has been happening in -- north of the equator. we've got the two jet stream's above the equator. pull a jet stream subtropical. below the equator, you have the jet stream near the south pole. those major jet what aircraft are flying.

it gets them to the destination sooner. -- >> can't believe i'm so myopic. i'm always staring at the northern hemisphere. >> it is because we are home. >> what can they do? does it mean they choose to fly even higher? i guess they are flying at the limit for airplanes. beyond that, planes cannot go there. >> i don't think the aviation industry figured out what to do. i don't know if there is anything you can do. they are studying whether they should start building aircraft that are more resistant to these sharp and sudden changes of wind speed and direction. they don't want us to get to the point where they thought it would be damaged because of this turbulence. they are not saying -- >> i was always told planes can handle that and turbulence is

fine, you can hit the ceiling, but the plane is fine. >> they are still saying the planes are fine. but because the incidence of turbulence becoming more frequent and more severe, there is concerns we should start building sturdier aircraft's to withstand the changes coming our way. the prediction is clear air turbulence is going to trouble -- triple in frequency over the next 30 to 50 years. if it triples in frequency, it is likely to increase the intensity. that could put a strain on the aircraft itself. >> that is true. but also, i know there is some technology solutions that you also explored in your piece, potentially using ai. >> using artificial intelligence, scientists are hoping they can get a better

sense of what is going on these changes in wind speed directions are going. they want a better model of air turbulence to see how they can adjust to it. they don't have the answers yet. it is a matter of study. if somehow there could be a massive global effort to reduce carbon emissions and slow down the pace of global warming or climate change, that would be helpful. if we continue in meeting these gases in the atmosphere, we continue the pattern of warming and experience more frequent clear air turbulence or severe air turbulence. >> that is enough to get me walking to work instead of driving my car. i am nervous flyer. >> i'm not typically a nervous flyer. but when i'm on a flight and all of a sudden there is a sudden encounter with turbulence, i get

tense. >> i've got to say, turbulence feels a little better in first craft. thank you great story. hope to see you back in studio tomorrow. coming up, times are changing in san francisco. among the big issues, we learned two major downtown hotels defaulted on their loans in the city is in the midst of a new crackdown on street drug use. we will

>> san francisco's downtown continues to struggle. the latest shoe to drop, the owner of our 55 hotels stopping

payments on their loans, blaming conditions in the city making it fickle to be profitable. the city is showing signs of stepping up efforts to control the fentanyl crisis. joining us with more is mayor london breed. hilton union square is single biggest hotel in the city. it defaulting on loans doesn't mean they are necessarily going away. how do you react to this news? >> they have been in close contact with us. they have been struggling and we will continue to be open and see what happens. they are still committed to working with us in some capacity to remain open and with some of the various conventions and other things we have coming up, including the asian-pacific economic collaborative, many hotels are at maximum capacity. we hope the tide will change and they will ensure their success

getting through this. >> when you say work with them, is it things they sideline high office vacancy rates, safety and security concerns? what are your plans for improving the factors? >> a couple of things, as it relates to baha'i vacancy rate for our office rate, it is closer to 27%. life-sciences is less than 5%. we want to diversify uses. westfield doesn't have to just be a place for retail, it can a place for the university of california san francisco which needs additional space. looking at our educational institution, it can be a place for flat space. we have to diversify downtown, activate downtown in the evenings and weekends. a big part of our strategy is public safety. public safety around not just retail theft, but also the drug

dealing and drug using on our streets. just last week, the police launched an operation to take people into custody that are out on our streets that are in some cases struggling with addiction and so far in that operation, we have been able to take 25 people into custody. of those 25, 9 had warrants. one lived in san f which we know. the biggest problem people have coming into our city who don't live here, whether selling or using drugs. part of the steps we are taking is to ensure our streets are safe and we are a lot more aggressive in enforcing the laws on the books. >> with some people, it is a controversial approach. i wonder what you would say if they would ask if we are more about punishment than intervention? >> we are talking the same talk,

san francisco is a compassionate city. the amount of services we have for people suffering addiction, whether they are abstinence based programs, housing opportunities, increasing our housing portfolio for homeless people by 50% and community investments, i can go on and on about what is available. but out of the 25 people arrested, even those released who did not have warrants, none accepted the services we were offering. there comes a time when are not accepting the services, we cannot allow what we see on our streets to continue. we need to take action and cannot let people this comfortable with open air drug dealing, openly using drugs, sprawled out over the sidewalks. in some cases, committing

that break the law, the violence persisting around this issue, we have to stop it and cannot throw our hands up. there will be critics, so would rather do something that sit back and listen to people tell us what we should not do. >> i want to get your view on additional steps the state could take. we are one month into governor newsom assisting with the chp in the tenderloin. i wonder if you see a yielding of results. and you have taken action to get the biden administration for further support. >> what has been great about the support we have gotten from california highway patrol is they have confiscated vehicles, drugs, weapons, made arrests. they've added value ensuring th public is safe because of what they have done. the goal is to pub

information of the effectiveness of the things they are doing. the work with the is data-driven and frees up our space and police department to allow others to be on the streets. we are able to make those arrests it has led to results. in part of wanting more, it means asking the president of the united states to really focus resources and attention not just on the bigger picture on what they are doing with the cartels, but what we are dealing with and the results happening on the ground. in a city like san francisco and other major cities, i have mayors across the country supporting a resolution i submitted asking for more interference.

the president put out a plan. i'm asking for things outside the scope of that plan to help us deliver results. most of the things they are doing on a national level we will never feel and understand completely we will never feel the effects on the ground. what people see and experience every day on the ground, and we want the federal and state resources necessary to eradicate this problem in our city. >> it is important, you mentioned convention business coming back earlier. organizers of the j.p. morgan health care conference said they would be back after a good convention in january. our insider got a copy of the letter sent to you, there was price gouging. are you looking into that? >> we are working with the hotel industry to address that challenge. when i went to new orleans for the essence music festival, the

amount of money they charge compared to the rest of the year was a shock. i know with this challenging. for san francisco to remain competitive, we have to address it and work with our hotel industry. i am excited about the asian-pacific economic coming to san francisco. it is one of the biggest international events to happen since the establishment of the united nations in 1945 in san francisco, where we will have 21 heads of state, 300 ceos, other staff. this is hap before thanksgiving. it will put san francisco on the map. we will be ready for it. everything we will have to offer will be put on full international display like never before. we are looking forward to that. >> london breed, thank you so much.

involving a self-driving car that killed a dog in san francisco. concerns about the safety of robo taxis area our san francisco media partner will be joining us next.

>> a way most self-driving car in san francisco hit and killed a dog last month, adding to tensions about recent and widespread deployment of robo taxis. the san francisco standard has an article about the incident. we wanted to know whether it sways your opinion, if you would take a robo taxi. vote by scanning the qr code on your screen or heading to abc7 news.com/vote. vote on this conversation. joining us is leah's, data journalist for the san francisco standard who wrote the article. she has a broader look at the influence on public opinion.

i think you might need to turn on your microphone. >> can you hear me? >> tell us what happened. >> a the dmv, the car that was i autonomous driving mode was driving through a neighborhood around may 29. apparently a dog came out they are moving too fast. even though the car allegedly saw the dog coming through, it was not able to stop and it ran over the dog. >> it read the dog, it it was there. they are saying it is not a technology issue. does it change the way people feel about autonomous vehicles? >> there has been a lot of controversy since the competitor

crews have been rolling out their services throughout san francisco. there has been concerns there was not enough input before the local transit agencies. i think people are starting to see slowdowns from the cars and things like that. >> this incident aside a report of safety incidents, are self rising -- driving cars on the rise? >> the number of incidents reported is on the rise. it increased like sixfold in the last year. none of these incidents involved any sort of fatal or serious injuries towards humans. i think the big question has been if the cars are starting to drive into emergency situations or stall ambulances. >> what is the latest with the approval process? >> a lot of the approval happens

on a state level. over the last regulatory hurdle to get the california public utilities commission to allow for the cars to be taxis 24/7 at have services, that is going for a vote at the end of the month. the dmv has approved their access to driving through san francisco. >> do we know anything about pricing? is it too early to talk about? have they ruled out a vision of what it would look like? >> i think right now they currently allow for limited service through parts of san francisco you can pay for. i think it is too early to tell trends in pricing. >> i want to bring up our megaphone for the folks voting on this issue, whether they would or would not ride in a robo taxi. 80% of you say you would not. 20% say yes.

>> it does not sur there has been pushed from san franciscans because the city is often grounds for people to test out things like uber. there is a lot of resistance at the beginning. >> thank you for sharing your database article and thanks to the viewers for voting on it. check out francisco standard's other original reporting on her story on their website sfstandard.com. abc7 will bring you more segments featuring the standard's city focused journalism. look for it twice a week on getting answers at 3:00 p.m.. but do they really? do they see that crick in your neck? that ache in your heart? will they see that funny little thing that wasn't there last year?

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>> we will be here every weekday at 3:00 answering questions around the bay area. world news tonight is next. >> david: tonight, breaking news has become on the air. her shorts, shooting at a high school graduation come of images coming in right now authorities have ventured into graduation ceremony, there are reports as our multiple people shot. pierre thomas tenney by with the news coming in now. also tonight, the explosion in ukraine, the dramatic pictures destroying a major dam. their new concern over the safety of europe's largest nuclear power plant inside ukraine. tom soufi burridge from