Lightning to increase with global warmingRecent research published in Science has constrained someth

Lightning to increase with global warmingRecent research published in Science has constrained something that has long been suspected: the increase in electrical strikes as the world warms, and the likely rate of increase as the increased temperatures create more extreme weather events such as hurricanes and storms. The team used historical data and climate models to examine by how much lightning strikes have already gone up and the likely growth for each degree of warming (12%).The team established the connection between warming temperatures; higher energy storms fuelled by the excess heat and increased rainfall, since warm air can hold more moisture than cool. Moisture in the air is fuel for storms, since it stores alot more heat than air does. Currently estimates for strikes worldwide are hovering around a hundred a second, around 8 million a day. They tied together data from the National Lightning Data Network, rainfall records and measures of convective energy (which reflect the storm’s power), finding close overlaps in the data showing that all these factors are intimately linked. When the pattern was extended through time using multi year data the correlation became even more obvious.The data was then extended through climate models to predict likely rates of increase, based on the historical patterns. Lightning is known to occur more frequently where the updrafts are strong and the moisture content high, both factors predicted to increase in a warming world.Depending on which emissions scenario we end up living through over the next decades, this translates into a likely 50% increase by the end of the century. Since I suspect alot of the scientific research into the likely effects of climate change is on the conservative and cautious side, this could in practise amount to considerably more. While beautiful, lightning occasionally kills people, starts sometimes lethal wildfires or damages property, meaning that the increase will have very real consequences, particularly in combination with other probable effects such as increased droughts in some areas of the world.LozImage credit: Jared Smithhttp://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2014/11/13/lightning-expected-to-increase-by-50-percent-with-global-warming/http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lightning-may-increase-with-global-warming/http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/13/lightning-strikes-will-increase-due-to-climate-changeoriginal paper paywall access: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/346/6211/851 -- source link
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