Climate Change May Alter the Way Lightning Strikes in Europe

This might result in less lightning over central Europe and more lightning over mountains and in northern Europe.

Lightning patterns change with global warming

(Photo : Johannes Plenio/Unsplash)

According to a study conducted by Newcastle University and the Met Office and published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, there may be evidence of shifting weather patterns in the following areas:

Increasing temperatures lead to more storms with greater energy, but locally less lightning due to a decrease in cloud ice and frozen particles in storm clouds, as per ScienceDaily.

Less lightning over the sea and on lower terrain in central Europe, but this is dependent on less certain circulation changes.

However, as the authors point out, it's not all bad news. The researchers discovered that these changes could increase the risk of wildfires over the mountains and in Northern Europe.

While more frequent lightning strikes over mountains and in Northern Europe may cause more wildfires in higher-level forests, we are going to see relatively fewer lightning hazards over more populated areas of Central Europe, according to study lead author Dr. Abdullah Kahraman, Senior Researcher in Severe Weather and Climate Change at the School of Engineering at Newcastle University.

This is from the most recent Met Office climate simulations, which, unlike earlier studies, allowed individual thunderstorms and their crucial processes leading to lightning to be simulated across Europe.

These simulations have the highest local details in meteorological and topographical features down to 2 km.

This is one potential future climate (RCP8.5 scenario) realization, and there are uncertainties, particularly with regard to circulation changes.

"These new very high-resolution climate projections, which have a resolution on par with weather forecast models, are providing new insights into future changes in convective storms and their associated hazards - such as heavy downpours, lightning, hail, and wind gusts," said Professor Lizzie Kendon, Met Office Science Fellow, and co-author on the paper.

Why That's a Big Deal

The likelihood of thunderstorms may increase due to climate change warming the air and allowing it to hold more moisture, as per Inside Climate News.

According to a significant study from 2014, if global warming keeps up its current rate, the number of lightning strikes in the United States could rise by up to 50% by the end of the century, with each additional degree of warming producing about 12% more strikes.

However, scientists and government officials are more worried about lightning striking dry vegetation and starting wildfires than they are about lightning striking people.

In addition to increasing the likelihood of lightning, global warming is exacerbated drought conditions in regions like the American West, where dried-out grass and trees now make the ideal kindling, and lightning strikes play a disproportionately large role in starting fires.

According to the U.S., lightning started more than 40% of the wildfires in the West between 1992 and 2015. Forest Service.

In addition, in 2020, California saw an extraordinary flurry of 15,000 lightning strikes in a matter of days, igniting more than 600 fires that scorched more than 2 million acres and destroyed thousands of homes and structures.