Lightning has skyrocketed in the Arctic over the past decade

Lightning is much less common in colder parts of the planet - cold is less conducive to humidity,

necessary for the electrical charge of crystalsice in the clouds. In this new study, researchers found that in the Arctic, the number of lightning strikes increases sharply as average air temperatures rise due to global warming. Notably, previous studies have shown that temperatures there are rising about three times faster than in the rest of the world.

Scientists have studied data from WWWLLN, which is controlled byUniversity of Washington, and found an increase in the number of lightning strikes in the Arctic. This led to a deeper study that focused on comparing the number of lightning strikes in northern Canada, Siberia, Alaska, and the Arctic Ocean - basically anything above 65 degrees latitude. They focused their efforts on summing up the number of strikes in the Arctic region for 2010–2020.

Data, mainly for the summer months, showedthat the average number of lightning strikes in a given year for the entire region has grown from about 18,000 to over 150,000. Concerned that the massive increase may be due to improved technology, the researchers corrected the difference in sensors and compared what they found to lightning strikes in other parts of the world over the same time period. The results remained the same. But the comparison showed that Arctic lightning strikes, which once accounted for 0.2% of all lightning strikes on the planet in 2010, accounted for 0.6% in 2020.

Researchers suggest that in addition toreminders of a warming planet, their findings are likely to influence Arctic surveyors to step up their approach to dealing with wildfires from increased lightning strikes.

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