Prepare for more lightning

Will Dunham in Reuters: Rising global temperatures may cause a big jolt in the number of lightning strikes in the United States over the rest of the 21st century in the latest example of extreme weather spawned by climate change, scientists say.

Researchers forecast on Thursday that lightning strikes will increase by about 50 percent by 2100 in the continental United States because thunderstorms will become more explosive in the coming decades thanks to a warming planet.

This increase could lead to more wildfires because lightning already triggers half of these blazes in the United States, the researchers said. Lightning also kills dozens of Americans annually, with that risk expected to rise.

Considering factors including precipitation levels, cloud buoyancy and warming air, the scientists predicted a 7 percent increase in the number of lightning strikes with each degree Fahrenheit global average temperature increase (12 percent for each degree Celsius).

The 11 different climate models used in the study pointed to an increase of 7 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius) between now and 2100. "There are about 30 million strikes per year in the contiguous U.S. now. So, in 2100, we would expect about 45 million per year," said climate scientist David Romps of the University of California, Berkeley and the U.S. government's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who led the study published in the journal Science....

Lightning over Lausanne, shot by Orphée, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons 3.0 license

Sophisticated sensor will give NOAA earlier warnings of severe storms

A press release from Lockheed Martin: A Lockheed Martin .. team delivered the first Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) instrument that will provide earlier alerts of developing severe storms and contribute to more accurate tornado warnings. The sensor will fly on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) next-generation Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) satellite missions, known as the GOES-R Series.

The team is preparing integration with the first GOES-R spacecraft at Lockheed Martin’s facility near Denver. The satellite is expected to launch in early 2016.

“GLM will have the potential to save lives by using lightning as a reliable indicator of severe weather, like tornados,” said Russell Katz, Lockheed Martin GLM deputy program manager. “A rapid increase of in-cloud lightning can precede severe weather on the ground. Changes in that type of lightning can also give us a better understanding of the updraft strength in thunderstorms.” The instrument also gives us a better understanding of the updraft strength of thunderstorms by capturing changes of the in-cloud lightning.”

GLM provides a new capability to track lightning flashes from geostationary orbit, with continuous coverage of the United States and most of the Western Hemisphere. The heart of the GLM instrument is a high-speed (500 frames per second), 1.8 megapixel focal plane, integrated with low-noise electronics and specialized optics to detect weak lightning signals, even against bright, sunlit cloud backgrounds.

...GOES satellites are a key element in NOAA’s National Weather Service operations, providing a continuous stream of environmental information (weather imagery and sounding data) used to support weather forecasting, severe-storm tracking and meteorological research....

The first Geostationary Lightning Mapper instrument, shown here in a file photo, will be launched aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s next-generation weather satellite missions, GOES-R, starting in 2016. Photo from the Lockheed Martin website

Lightning, floods leave 20 dead in rain-hit China

Terra Daily via AFP: At least 20 people have died in the past week as torrential rain batters swathes of China, with at least six killed by lightning, thousands of homes destroyed and more than 300,000 evacuated, state media said.

There had been six deaths from lightning strikes in the central province of Jiangxi since last Friday, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

There were other fatalities from lightning in Guizhou in the southwest, it said, where a total of seven people died. A landslide in the province early Thursday buried eight people, Xinhua said, with two rescued by mid-morning but six still missing.

Officials in Guizhou are bracing for more devastation, the China Daily said, reporting a warning that "local authorities should make full-scale preparations for geological disasters that could be triggered by rains".

The most severe downpours, which began on Sunday night, destroyed 5,800 homes and damaged another 16,300 in Guizhou, Xinhua said, in a re
port late Wednesday...

Lightning detection promises improved storm forecasts

Charlotte Owen in SciDev.net: An alternative to costly radar-based weather services could soon be operational in developing nations, to help them detect severe storms more cheaply and quickly. The technology, which uses lightning detection to forecast when and where storms will strike, has already proven successful in demonstration projects in Brazil, Guinea and India. Next year, Earth Networks — one of the companies at the forefront of the technology — will conduct further trials in Haiti.

As more developing nations increase their numbers of mobile phone masts, which are ideal locations for mounting the lightning sensors on, the proportion of countries using the technology looks set to increase, according to the US company.

Lightning detection costs a fraction of traditional Doppler radars, which can cost tens of millions of dollars for broad regional coverage. “Data from these stations would fill the gaps encountered in the collection and exchange of data on the regional and international level.”

Mamadou Lamine Bah, National Directorate of Meteorology  It also collects data faster and, by monitoring precipitation, can be used to assess the likelihood of floods and drought. According to Finnish company Vaisala, which has more than 100 lightning detection stations located in the United States, when lightning is detected the data can be delivered in less than two minutes.

Vaisala’s Total Lightning system detects the electromagnetic signals given off when lightning strikes the earth’s surface. Information on the location, time, and strength of each strike, and on whether it is positively or negatively charged is then processed and communicated to users of the technology....

Photo by Thomas Bresson, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Oregon's wildfire budget exceeded

Jeff Barnard in the Bend Bulletin via the AP: Lightning and drought spread wildfire to more state-protected land in 2013 than any year since 1951, and sent spending $30 million over revenues, according to a report from the Oregon Department of Forestry.

The 162 square miles that burned on state, private and U.S. Bureau of Land Management lands protected by the Oregon Department of Forestry was eight times the 10-year average, and nearly half the 325 square miles that burned overall in Oregon. The last time so much state-protected land burned was at the end of the two-decade period known as the Tillamook Burn.

“This is the shape of things to come, based on everything we know about potential climate change fluctuations and energy in the atmosphere," said John Bailey, an associate professor of forestry at Oregon State University. “This is going to become more the norm than the unusual."

The National Climate Assessment issued this year predicts the area burned by wildfires will double nationwide over the next 25 years, as global warming increases temperatures, lengthens wildfire seasons and generates more droughts.

Oregon spent $122 million on large fires, which burned an estimated $370 million in timber on state, private and BLM lands, the report said.

After reimbursements from federal agencies, the state is liable for $75 million. That is $30 million over the amount covered by landowner assessments, the state general fund, and a $25 million insurance policy. The department will have to go to the Legislature to ask for the extra money, spokesman Rod Nichols said....

Boys from Illinois fight Tillamook (Oregon) fire, from 1933

16 die, scores injured as lightning strikes Bangladesh

Newstime (South Africa): Local news agencies in Bangladesh have confirmed that at least 16 people have died and scores of others injured by lightning strikes which took place throughout the country. Victims were as widespread as farmlands, at home or in some cases simply walking along the road. 6 people died and 4 were injured in the northeastern district of Habiganj, 120 kilometers northeast of the capital, Dhaka.

Elsewhere it was worse with 10 more killed and an unknown number injured in five districts spread throughout northern, central, southern and northeastern parts of the country. While confirming that the injured were rushed to hospitals officials were unavailable to comment.

Straddling the Tropic of Cancer, Bangladeshi climate is tropical with a mild winter from October to March, a hot, humid summer from March to June. A warm and humid monsoon season lasts from June to October and supplies most of the country's rainfall. Natural calamities, such as floods, tropical cyclones, tornadoes, and tidal bores occur almost every year.

In September 1998, Bangladesh saw the most severe flooding in modern world history. As the Brahmaputra, Ganges and Meghna spilt over and swallowed 300,000 houses, 9,700 kilometres of road and 2,700 kilometres of embankment 1,000 people were killed and 30 million more were made homeless with 135,000 cattle killed, 50 square kilometres of land destroyed and 11,000 kilometres of roads damaged or destroyed. Two-thirds of the country was underwater….