(NewsNation) — If you’ve felt like your flights have been bumpier than usual lately, new research says that may not be just a suspicion.

Meteorologists at the University of Reading in England found that as the Earth’s air continues to get warmer, it’s making the planet’s atmosphere more unstable, leading to those rougher flights.

The study shows that the total annual duration of severe turbulence has gone up 55% since 1979 — or close to a total of 18 hours worth of additional severe turbulence in a year. In 2020, there were more than 27 hours of total severe turbulence for the year.

Last December, turbulence on a flight to Hawaii sent 20 people, including a 14-month-old, to the hospital. The oxygen masks came down during that flight, and luggage, food and personal items were sent flying.

The last turbulence-related fatality recorded by the National Transportation Safety Board was back in 1997.

Still, it’s best to put that seatbelt on as soon as the crew tells you to buckle up. In general, industry experts say the bigger the plane, the better it can handle this sudden bumpiness.

Joseph Schwieterman, a professor of transportation and public policy at DePaul University in Chicago, says documenting routine turbulence can be difficult.

“There isn’t a clear protocol if (a pilot) encounters turbulence,” he said. “If there are things like bird strikes or lightning strikes, they usually get reported. But turbulence is sort of a routine thing.”

Damage to a plane from turbulence — and resulting passenger injuries — can cost airlines hundreds of millions of dollars a year, according to experts.

Schwieterman said that’s likely to lead to some change.

“I do think we’re going to have demand by safety officials when there’s extreme turbulence to map this (turbulence), to plot it, to try to forecast it better. Because right now, the weather forecasts we get mostly miss some of the turbulence problems,” he said.