Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. 24/7 Space News .




CLIMATE SCIENCE
World thunderstorm 'map' key to assessing climate change
by Staff Writers
Tel Aviv, Israel (SPX) Feb 10, 2015


File image.

The Doomsday Clock, which measures the likelihood of global catastrophe, last week ticked a minute closer to "midnight"--- the apocalypse. The symbolic clock was set to 11:57 by a board of atomic scientists featuring 17 Nobel Laureates, who warned that the planet, beset by climate change and nuclear proliferation, faced extraordinary and undeniable threats to its continued existence.

New research by Prof. Colin Price of Tel Aviv University's Department of Geosciences and published in Environmental Research Letters will likely be crucial to measuring the impact of climate change on thunderstorms -- one of the weather occurrences most problematic for human life on the planet. The varying frequency and intensity of thunderstorms have direct repercussions for the public, agriculture, and industry.

"To date, satellites have only provided snapshots of thunderstorm incidence," said Prof. Price, whose new map of thunderstorms around the world is the first of its kind.

"We want to use our algorithm to determine how climate change will affect the frequency and intensity of thunderstorms. According to climate change predictions, every one percent rise in global temperature will lead to a 10 percent increase in thunderstorm activity. This means that we could see 25 percent more lightning by the end of the century."

Keeping track of lightning
To draft a global thunderstorm map, Prof. Price and TAU graduate student Keren Mezuman used a vast global lightning network of 70 weather stations capable of detecting radio waves produced by lightning --the main feature of a thunderstorm -- from thousands of miles away.

The World Wide Lightning Location Network is run by atmospheric scientists at universities and research institutes around the world. The TAU team harnessed this ground-based system to cluster individual lightning flashes into "thunderstorm cells."

Every hour the exact GPS time of every detected lightning pulse was registered. Prof. Price and his colleagues then calculated the difference in arrival times of signals, using data from four to five different stations to locate individual lightning strokes anywhere on the globe. Finally, the researchers grouped the detected flashes into clusters of thunderstorm cells.

The WWLLN station in Israel has the ability to detect lightning as far away as central Africa.

Climate change and thunderstorms
"When we clustered the lighting strikes into storm cells, we found that there were around 1,000 thunderstorms active at any time somewhere on the globe," said Prof. Price.

The researchers, pooling seven years of data analysis, found that every day lightning activity on earth peaked at 1900 GMT, with low activity at 0300 GMT every day. While previous studies had estimated that 90 percent of lightning flashes occurred over land areas, the TAU team found that only 50 percent of the thunderstorms cells existed over land areas, implying that land storms have much more lightning than ocean storms.

"How lightning will be distributed in storms, and how the number and intensity of storms will change in the future, are questions we are working on answering," Prof. Price said.


Thanks for being here;
We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain.

With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords.

Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year.

If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor
$5 Billed Once


credit card or paypal
SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter
$5 Billed Monthly


paypal only


.


Related Links
American Friends of Tel Aviv University
Climate Science News - Modeling, Mitigation Adaptation






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle




Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News





CLIMATE SCIENCE
Sodium carbonate capsules used to capture carbon safely
Livermore CA (SPX) Feb 06, 2015
Using the same baking soda found in most grocery stores, Lawrence Livermore scientists, along with colleagues from Harvard University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, have created a significant advance in carbon dioxide capture. The team developed a new type of carbon capture media composed of core-shell microcapsules, which consist of a highly permeable polymer shell an ... read more


CLIMATE SCIENCE
NASA releases video of the far side of the Moon

US Issuing Licenses for Mineral Mining on Moon

LRO finds lunar hydrogen more abundant on Moon's pole-facing slopes

Service Module of Chinese Probe Enters Lunar Orbit

CLIMATE SCIENCE
NASA Spacecraft Completes 40,000 Mars Orbits

NASA's Curiosity Analyzing Sample of Martian Mountain

Mars Rover Nearing Marathon Achievement

Mars Orbiter Spies Curiosity Rover at Work

CLIMATE SCIENCE
SNC Completes Dream Chaser Study with German Aerospace Industry Partners

SpaceX postpones rocket launch to Wednesday

Moon momentos found languishing in Armstrong's closet

The Space Diet: Authentic Astronaut Food Goes on Sale in Moscow

CLIMATE SCIENCE
More Astronauts for China

China launches the FY-2 08 meteorological satellite successfully

China's Long March puts satellite in orbit on 200th launch

Countdown to China's new space programs begins

CLIMATE SCIENCE
Camera to record doomed ATV's disintegration - from inside

ATV to bid farewell to Space Station for last time

The Strange Way Fluids Slosh on the International Space Station

NASA's CATS Installed on ISS by Robotic Handoff

CLIMATE SCIENCE
Iran launches fourth satellite into orbit

Soyuz Installed at Baikonur, Expected to Launch Wednesday

SpaceX to try rocket recycle launch on Tuesday

SpaceX calls off launch of space-weather satellite

CLIMATE SCIENCE
Scientists predict earth-like planets around most stars

"Vulcan Planets" - Inside-Out Formation of Super-Earths

Dawn ahead!

Habitable Evaporated Cores

CLIMATE SCIENCE
Penta-graphene, a new structural variant of carbon, discovered

Winding borders may enhance graphene

Cheap and abundant chemical outperforms precious metals as a catalyst

Study reveals how oxygen is like kryptonite to titanium




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement All images and articles appearing on Space Media Network have been edited or digitally altered in some way. Any requests to remove copyright material will be acted upon in a timely and appropriate manner. Any attempt to extort money from Space Media Network will be ignored and reported to Australian Law Enforcement Agencies as a potential case of financial fraud involving the use of a telephonic carriage device or postal service.