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+--- Thread: An incendiary form of lightning may surge under climate change (/thread-13748.html)
An incendiary form of lightning may surge under climate change - C C - Mar 1, 2023
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/hot-lightning-strike-wildfire-spark-risk-climate-change
INTRO: A form of lightning with a knack for sparking wildfires may surge under climate change.
An analysis of satellite data suggests “hot lightning” — strikes that channel electrical charge for an extended period — may be more likely to set landscapes ablaze than more ephemeral flashes, researchers report February 10 in Nature Communications. Each 1 degree Celsius of warming could spur a 10 percent increase in the most incendiary of these Promethean bolts, boosting their flash rate to about four times per second by 2090 — up from nearly three times per second in 2011.
That’s dangerous, warns physicist Francisco Javier Pérez-Invernón of the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia in Granada, Spain. “There will be more risk of lightning-ignited wildfires.” Among all the forces of nature, lightning sets off the most blazes... (MORE - details)