Projected increase in lightning strikes in the United States due to global warming
Open accessAbstract
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.
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Even if anthropogenic climate change increases lightning strikes by 50% by 2100, human ignitions would remain the dominant ignition source over most of the contiguous US land area.
“However, even with a projected increase in the number of lightning strikes as a result of anthropogenic climate change (50% by 2100) (35), humans would still remain the dominant ignition source across the majority of the United States land area.”
From Human-started wildfires expand the fire niche across the United States (2017) · cites this paper as [35]
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References 38 · Cited by 613
Research works printed but not linked: 10
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- Authors
- Romps, D. M., Seeley, J. T., Vollaro, D., & Molinari, J.
- Affiliations
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (US)
- State University of New York (US)
- Corresponding author
- Romps, David M.
- Venue
- Science
- Published
- 2014-11-14
- Volume
- 346
- Issue
- 6211
- Pages
- 851-854
- ISSN
- 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
- 1095-9203
- OpenAlex
- W2138514443
- Cited by
- 613
- References
- 38
- Citations by year
- 2026: 42 · 2025: 54 · 2024: 81 · 2023: 63 · 2022: 66 · 2021: 70 · 2020: 56 · 2019: 44 · 2018: 39 · 2017: 32 · 2016: 36 · 2015: 27 · 2014: 3
- FWCI
- 17.61
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.osti.gov
- Locations
- Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) (submittedVersion)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (DEAC02-05CH11231, 1106400, 1132576)
- U.S. Department of Energy (-AC02-05CH11231, 05CH11231, DE AC02 05CH11231, DE-AC02-)
- Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration
- Office of Science (DEAC02–05CH11231, AC02-05CH11231, DE-AC02)
- Advanced Scientific Computing Research (DE-AC02-05CH11231)
- Biological and Environmental Research (05CH11231, DE-AC02 − 05CH11231, AC02-05CH11231)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Lightning and Electromagnetic Phenomena
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Climate variability and models
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Atmospheric aerosols and clouds
- Keywords
- lightning strikes, global warming, climate change projections, convective available potential energy, precipitation rate, cloud-to-ground lightning, lightning flash rate, lightning energy, climate model projections, contiguous United States, forest fires
- MeSH terms
- Lightning, United States, Convection, Global Warming
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