Lightning, thermodynamic and hydrological comparison of the two tropical continental chimneys

Williams, Earle; Sátori, Gabriella

doi:10.1016/j.jastp.2004.05.015

Cited by 151 publications

(119 citation statements)

References 75 publications

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“…Firstly, Manaus is located in the central part of the largest tropical forest in the world, the Amazon rainforest, far away from the mountains, minimizing a possible influence of this aspect on lightning observations. Secondly, Manaus is located inside an area considered as one of the three global lightning chimneys of the world [30], so that any effect observed in this region may have a direct influence on the global lightning activity and, in consequence, on the climate system.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lightning Enhancement in the Amazon Region Due to Urban Activity

Pinto¹,

Pinto²,

Neto³

2013

AJCC

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Urbanization has an increasing contribution to anthropogenic climate forcing. The impact arises mainly from the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect and aerosol anthropogenic emissions. An important but not completely understood consequence of this forcing is its effect on local lightning activity. Changes in lightning activity may result in a feedback on the climate system. In this article, it investigates changes in the lightning activity in the city of Manaus, located in the Amazon region of Brazil. It is found that, over the city, the lightning activity is larger than that in the regions around it and it has been increasing in the last four decades simultaneously with the increasing of its urban area. Our results suggest that such changes are caused by the UHI effect. The observations reported here are unique and relevant because Manaus is located in the central part of the Amazon rainforest and inside one of the three global lightning chimneys in the world.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lightning Enhancement in the Amazon Region Due to Urban Activity

Pinto¹,

Pinto²,

Neto³

2013

AJCC

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“…There are large portions of Central Africa and northwest India where flashes will be under-estimated, a problem found in other studies (Tost et al, 2007). To explain flash density differences between continental regions, Williams and Sátori (2004) explore a novel concept by describing meteorology in the Amazon as more oceanic in nature than that in Africa. This may suggest that fits of continental lightning are an average of different convective regimes with Central Africa representing the continental extreme thereby explaining its under-estimation in the continental fit.…”

Section: Application Of the Iceflux Relationshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using cloud ice flux to parametrise large-scale lightning

et al. 2014

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Abstract.Lightning is an important natural source of nitrogen oxide especially in the middle and upper troposphere. Hence, it is essential to represent lightning in chemistry transport and coupled chemistry-climate models. Using ERA-Interim meteorological reanalysis data we compare the lightning flash density distributions produced using several existing lightning parametrisations, as well as a new parametrisation developed on the basis of upward cloud ice flux at 440 hPa. The use of ice flux forms a link to the non-inductive charging mechanism of thunderstorms. Spatial and temporal distributions of lightning flash density are compared to tropical and subtropical observations for 2007-2011 from the Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite. The well-used lightning flash parametrisation based on cloud-top height has large biases but the derived annual total flash density has a better spatial correlation with the LIS observations than other existing parametrisations. A comparison of flash density simulated by the different schemes shows that the cloud-top height parametrisation has many more instances of moderate flash densities and fewer low and high extremes compared to the other parametrisations. Other studies in the literature have shown that this feature of the cloud-top height parametrisation is in contrast to lightning observations over certain regions. Our new ice flux parametrisation shows a clear improvement over all the existing parametrisations with lower root mean square errors (RMSEs) and better spatial correlations with the observations for distributions of annual total, and seasonal and interannual variations. The greatest improvement with the new parametrisation is a more realistic representation of the zonal distribution with a better balance between tropical and subtropical lightning flash estimates. The new parametrisation is appropriate for testing in chemistry transport and chemistry-climate models that use a lightning parametrisation.

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“…Though it is clear from these studies that large percentage of lightning activity occurs over land (Turman and Edgar, 1982;Orville and Henderson;Christian et al, 1999), a considerable amount of lightning activity still occurs over oceans and coastal areas. (Hidayat and Ishii, 1998;Boccippio and Goodman, 2000;Ushio et al, 2001;Fullekrug et al, 2002;Toracinta et al, 2002;Williams and Stanfil, 2002;Seity et al, 2003;Altaratz et al, 2003;Williams and Satori 2004;Williams and Chan, 2004;Collier et al, 2006;Pinto et al, 2007;Chronis et al, 2008). There are maritime regions such as Gulf Stream in the Atlantic and in the South Pacific Ocean near Australia, where lightning activity appears frequently.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Zuidema (2003) studied convective clouds over the Bay of Bengal (BoB) and showed that land-water interface plays an important role in the convection genesis and affects the spatial distribution of convection. Williams et al, ( , 2005 and Williams and Satori (2004) have shown that the cloud base height and dry bulb temperature are important indicators of lightning activity. Collier et al (2006) examined the seasonal and diurnal variations of lightning activity over southern Africa and correlated it with European whistler observations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Land‐ocean contrasts in lightning activity over the Indian region

Kandalgaonkar

Kulkarni

Tinmaker

et al. 2009

Intl Journal of Climatology

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Land-ocean contrasts in the lightning activity over Indian land and two surrounding oceanic regions viz. Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal have been studied. Satellite-based lightning flash data for 5-year (1998-2002) period have been used. The study revealed that lightning activity over Bay of Bengal was three times higher than that over Arabian Sea and 9.3 times lower than that over land. The bimodal distribution is seen over Arabian Sea (peaks in April and November), and land (peaks in May and September). A unimodal distribution is observed over Bay of Bengal with peak in May. The maximum activity over Bay of Bengal occurs more at northern latitudes (28-30°N) compared with Arabian Sea (12-14°N). The land-ocean contrast is dominated by monsoon season. Comparison of lightning activity in the El Nino (2002) and La Nina year (1998)(1999)(2000)(2001) shows that the lightning activity is increased by nearly 18% over the land region and it maybe attributed to in the increase in surface air temperature during the warm phase of El Nino, land sea breeze circulations and difference in the continental and the oceanic convection.

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Lightning, thermodynamic and hydrological comparison of the two tropical continental chimneys

Cited by 151 publications

References 75 publications

Lightning Enhancement in the Amazon Region Due to Urban Activity

Lightning Enhancement in the Amazon Region Due to Urban Activity

Using cloud ice flux to parametrise large-scale lightning

Land‐ocean contrasts in lightning activity over the Indian region

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