Lightning response to temperature and aerosols

Abstract

Abstract Lightning has profound social implications for public safety and usually causes casualties and significant damage to infrastructure. Due to the advancement of both ground-based and spaceborne detection technology, lightning has been monitored globally in recent decades as an indicator of severe weather and an essential variable of climate change. This article reviews recent progress in the study of lightning variations and their response to temperature and aerosols, based on both spaceborne and ground-based lightning data. The responses of lightning to temperature and aerosol show large spatial and temporal heterogeneity, with relation to the meteorological and environmental conditions. The latest research show that lightning exhibited significant increase in some high altitude or high latitude regions, such as the Tibetan Plateau and Arctic regions, where undergone fast warming during the recent decades and the ecosystems is fragile. Aerosol particles play an important role in modulating lightning variations under certain dynamical and thermodynamic conditions in some regions, even on a global scale. The projected lightning activity will generally increase in the future but may with very few exceptions. Continuous long-term lightning observations with consistent spatial and temporal detection efficiency remain crucial for tracking the response of lightning to climate change in the coming decades.