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A projected decrease in lightning under climate change

Nature Climate Change volume 8, pages 210–213 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

Lightning strongly influences atmospheric chemistry1,2,3, and impacts the frequency of natural wildfires4. Most previous studies project an increase in global lightning with climate change over the coming century1,5,6,7, but these typically use parameterizations of lightning that neglect cloud ice fluxes, a component generally considered to be fundamental to thunderstorm charging8. As such, the response of lightning to climate change is uncertain. Here, we compare lightning projections for 2100 using two parameterizations: the widely used cloud-top height (CTH) approach9, and a new upward cloud ice flux (IFLUX) approach10 that overcomes previous limitations. In contrast to the previously reported global increase in lightning based on CTH, we find a 15% decrease in total lightning flash rate with IFLUX in 2100 under a strong global warming scenario. Differences are largest in the tropics, where most lightning occurs, with implications for the estimation of future changes in tropospheric ozone and methane, as well as differences in their radiative forcings. These results suggest that lightning schemes more closely related to cloud ice and microphysical processes are needed to robustly estimate future changes in lightning and atmospheric composition.

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Fig. 1: Changes in lightning flash rate between the 2000s and 2100s using two lightning schemes.
Fig. 2: Mean vertical distributions of meteorological variables in the 2000s and 2100s, over tropical land.
Fig. 3: Estimated ozone, methane and the net radiative forcing between 2000 and 2100 resulting from climate change and LNOx emissions.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been supported by a Natural Environment Research Council grant NE/K500835/1. We thank L. Abraham for his assistance with set-up and use of the UK Chemistry and Aerosols model, and L. Jackson for his advice regarding the calculation of significance.

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Author notes

  1. Declan L. Finney

    Present address: Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of GeoSciences, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Declan L. Finney, Ruth M. Doherty, David S. Stevenson & Ian A. MacKenzie

  2. Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

    Oliver Wild

  3. National Centre for Atmospheric Science, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Alan M. Blyth

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Contributions

D.L.F., R.M.D. and O.W. designed the study and interpreted the results with input from other co-authors. O.W. and D.S.S. advised on the radiative forcing analysis. D.L.F. performed the analysis, developed the code and ran the simulations. D.L.F. prepared the manuscript with contributions from R.M.D. and O.W.; all co-authors reviewed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Declan L. Finney.

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Supplementary Text, Supplementary References, Supplementary Tables 1–3, Supplementary Figures 1–3

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Finney, D.L., Doherty, R.M., Wild, O. et al. A projected decrease in lightning under climate change. Nature Clim Change 8, 210–213 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0072-6

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