A recent paper in Science is getting a lot of attention: Projected increase in lightning strikes in the United States due to global warming Researchers have discovered a correlation between certain weather conditions, and the likelihood of lightning - and global warming is going to change those conditions in ways that will increase that likelihood.
Here's a video showing every lightning strike over the U.S. in 2011. http://youtu.be/...
More below the Orange Omnilepticon.
David M. Romps, Jacob T. Seeley, David Vollaro, John Molinari sum it up in their abstract:
Lightning plays an important role in atmospheric chemistry and in the initiation of wildfires, but the impact of global warming on lightning rates is poorly constrained. Here we propose that the lightning flash rate is proportional to the convective available potential energy (CAPE) times the precipitation rate. Using observations, the product of CAPE and precipitation explains 77% of the variance in the time series of total cloud-to-ground lightning flashes over the contiguous United States (CONUS). Storms convert CAPE times precipitated water mass to discharged lightning energy with an efficiency of 1%. When this proxy is applied to 11 climate models, CONUS lightning strikes are predicted to increase 12 ± 5% per degree Celsius of global warming and about 50% over this century.
emphasis added
A number of media outlets have picked up this story, not surprisingly. As Tim McDonnell at Mother Jones observes,
Does this mean an increase your odds of getting struck by lightning? Technically yes, I guess, but I wouldn't worry about that. Instead, the increase matters because lightning strikes are the principle cause of wildfires, which are already predicted to become more severe due to global warming. In one 24-hour period in August, lightning in Northern California started 34 wildfires. The study doesn't make any specific predictions about wildfire activity, but knowing about future lightning conditions is an important part of that equation.
Scientific American quotes [David] Romps on what led to the findings:
To start, Romps made some simple maps: One showed lightning strike data over the continental U.S. from 2011. The other combined precipitation and convection energy data for the same year (the only one for which data for all three variables was available). The two maps showed a surprising similarity, with much of the area with the most lightning also the area where the other two factors were high.
“I was puzzled by that,” Romps said. “It’s very rare in observations that you see a correlation that good, especially for three completely independent datasets.”
A graph that compared lightning with the other two factors over time was even more shocking, with the peaks and valleys of all three matching strikingly closely. Romps was, well, thunderstruck.
“That’s basically when my jaw hit the floor,” Romps said. “That’s when we knew we were really on to something.”
New Scientist looks at the implications:
Having validated it against past weather, Romps applied it to the 11 climate models. The resulting prediction estimated that for every 1°C rise in global temperatures, there would be a rise in lightning strikes of 12 per cent, on average. Across the 11 models the projections for increases in lightning ranged from 3.4 per cent per 1°C to 17.6 per 1°C in the worst-case scenario. In this worst-case scenario, with 5°C of global warming, lightning strikes more than doubled by the year 2100.
NPR covered the story as well. Reading the open comments there and at
the Mother Jones article show that there is a huge increase in Global Warming Denial Trolls as well. The same old zombie lies and ad hominem attacks are repeated over and over. It's getting to the point where
scientists are getting death threats.
Needless to say, the smaller government - budget slashing crowd now in control of Congress is not going to take this well; there was already not enough money to fight wildfires. When they hear Global Warming is making the problem worse, it's likely their denial will only grow stronger. Money is being shifted from other vital programs to literally put out fires, and it will only grow worse. More good people will die while the Climate Deniers dodge, weave, and demagogue.
New Scientist has a review of a one-man show that serves up a powerful message about Climate Change.
2071, Chris Rapley's understated one-person London stage show on climate change, gives our correspondent the chills
As a former director of both the British Antarctic Survey and the London Science Museum, Chris Rapley has been to the ends of the Earth, curated one of the great expositions of science and technology, and tracked half a century of growing scientific angst about climate change.
Now he has a show at London's Royal Court Theatre, written with playwright Duncan Macmillan. Rapley's name is emblazoned in neon over Sloane Square. This is science as showbiz.
...Part of its persuasiveness comes from Rapley's personal story. He begins with the day when, as a young boy in the 1950s, he was given an atlas and noticed that most of Antarctica was marked as a "region unknown to man". Much of his narrative follows the adult Rapley as he explores that region as a scientist, interprets satellite data, flies over disintegrating ice shelves and drills ice cores to penetrate the planet's past. He describes the thrill of breathing in air from half a million years ago, as cracking ice cores brought to the surface released their bubbles. So much for scientific objectivity: this is a boy in heaven.
And heaven is receding: even Rapley's low-key delivery falters as he describes how the extra heat in the atmosphere and oceans threatens to rip apart slabs of ice up to 4 kilometres thick.
It is to be hoped his show will be captured on video and shared. Time is running out while the deniers push us over the cliff's edge.