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Author Topic: Iced Lightning - Thunderstorm Activity Over the Arctic Ocean  (Read 10313 times)

Apocalypse4Real

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I have just finished a long blog post on the massive increase in thunderstorm and lightning activity over the Arctic from 1915 to 2016. What has happened with activity during the last two years has no parallel in the lightning database.

We are seeing effects due to sea ice melt that are enabling storms to generate cloud to ground strikes over 600 miles into the ice pack... or what used to be ice....

Here is the link: http://www.megiddo666.apocalypse4real-globalmethanetracking.com/2016/07/iced-lightning-lightning-strikes-at-80.html



Acts5v29

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Re: Iced Lightning - Thunderstorm Activity Over the Arctic Ocean
« Reply #1 on: July 13, 2016, 04:35:26 PM »
I have just spoken with my colleague - who designed and developed the lightning location system for the UK at Capenhurst.  She says such high-latitude strikes are significantly anomalous.

deinst

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Re: Iced Lightning - Thunderstorm Activity Over the Arctic Ocean
« Reply #2 on: July 13, 2016, 07:03:12 PM »
Is there any relationship between the magnetic storms in the upper atmosphere (aurora) and electrical storms at the surface?

I suspect that the recent increase is probably due to more water in the atmosphere (those pesky clouds shading the ice), but I had always wondered about the coupling of the weather of the upper and lower atmosphere.

Neven

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Re: Iced Lightning - Thunderstorm Activity Over the Arctic Ocean
« Reply #3 on: July 13, 2016, 11:42:30 PM »
Welcome, deinst, and sorry, I don't know the answer to your question.

A4R, I would like to repost this on the ASIB next week or so, if that's okay with you.
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Apocalypse4Real

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Re: Iced Lightning - Thunderstorm Activity Over the Arctic Ocean
« Reply #4 on: July 14, 2016, 04:53:49 AM »
Hi Neven,

I'd welcome your reporting it...Will you kindly give "honorable mention"?

It is a major change and the details are on my blog.

A4R

AbruptSLR

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Re: Iced Lightning - Thunderstorm Activity Over the Arctic Ocean
« Reply #5 on: July 14, 2016, 05:45:00 AM »
Here are some images of Arctic Lightning (for inspiration):
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

Apocalypse4Real

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Re: Iced Lightning - Thunderstorm Activity Over the Arctic Ocean
« Reply #6 on: July 14, 2016, 03:50:42 PM »
Interesting photos ASLR, where were they taken - do you know?

A4R

AbruptSLR

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Re: Iced Lightning - Thunderstorm Activity Over the Arctic Ocean
« Reply #7 on: July 14, 2016, 07:53:35 PM »
Interesting photos ASLR, where were they taken - do you know?

A4R

A4R,

I do not know where the photo was taken.  I went to Google Image and typed in "Arctic Lightning", and there are many sites there with this photo including the following linked site:

http://thefifthcorner.com/category/images/weatherphotos/

Best,
ASLR
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Neven

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Re: Iced Lightning - Thunderstorm Activity Over the Arctic Ocean
« Reply #8 on: July 16, 2016, 01:34:15 PM »
Hi Neven,

I'd welcome your reporting it...Will you kindly give "honorable mention"?

It is a major change and the details are on my blog.

A4R

Blog post is up.
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Apocalypse4Real

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Re: Iced Lightning - Thunderstorm Activity Over the Arctic Ocean
« Reply #9 on: July 18, 2016, 05:44:18 AM »
ASLR: Thanks for looking.

Neven: It is an unexpected honor to have something posted on the site.

A4R

Apocalypse4Real

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Re: Iced Lightning - Thunderstorm Activity Over the Arctic Ocean
« Reply #10 on: July 18, 2016, 05:54:29 AM »
Neven,

Nicely done intro and summary. For some reason Twitter won't let me comment on the ASI page, so you might want to give the link to "Paddy" Also much of the imagery is captured from the Alaska Interagency website and their lightning detection network.

A4R

icy voyeur

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Re: Iced Lightning - Thunderstorm Activity Over the Arctic Ocean
« Reply #11 on: July 18, 2016, 07:19:41 AM »
Neven: It is an unexpected honor to have something posted on the site.

The thanks is to you A4R, brilliant work. Keep it up.

Neven

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Re: Iced Lightning - Thunderstorm Activity Over the Arctic Ocean
« Reply #12 on: July 18, 2016, 10:19:57 AM »
Exactly. Thanks, AR4, for another interesting article. When I saw Tamino posting a blog called Arctic Heat, I was hoping he'd have more context of the heat in the high North, but unfortunately it was about sea ice extent.
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Re: Iced Lightning - Thunderstorm Activity Over the Arctic Ocean
« Reply #13 on: August 12, 2019, 10:49:19 AM »
News of lightning "within 300 miles of the North Pole":

https://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/blog/archives/33970

Quote
Lightning was detected with a thunderstorm located over the Arctic Ocean north of Siberia between 00-02 UTC on 11 August 2019. A sequence of AVHRR Visible (0.63 µm) and Infrared Window (10.8 µm) images from NOAA-15 (at 2315 UTC), NOAA-19 (at 0113 UTC) and NOAA-15 (at 0243 UTC)

[Click to animate the GIF]
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ReverendMilkbone

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Re: Iced Lightning - Thunderstorm Activity Over the Arctic Ocean
« Reply #15 on: August 13, 2019, 12:07:47 AM »
deinst
You may find this an interesting topic to pursue .
Sprite (lightning)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprite_(lightning)
Quote
Sprites or red sprites are large-scale electrical discharges that occur high above thunderstorm clouds, or cumulonimbus, giving rise to a quite varied range of visual shapes flickering in the night sky. They are usually triggered by the discharges of positive lightning between an underlying thundercloud and the ground.

Sprites appear as luminous reddish-orange flashes. They often occur in clusters above the troposphere at an altitude range of 50–90 km (31–56 mi). Sporadic visual reports of sprites go back at least to 1886,[citation needed] but they were first photographed on July 6, 1989 by scientists from the University of Minnesota and have subsequently been captured in video recordings many thousands of times.

Sprites are sometimes inaccurately called upper-atmospheric lightning. However, sprites are cold plasma phenomena that lack the hot channel temperatures of tropospheric lightning, so they are more akin to fluorescent tube discharges than to lightning discharges.
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vox_mundi

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Re: Iced Lightning - Thunderstorm Activity Over the Arctic Ocean
« Reply #16 on: August 13, 2019, 05:41:39 PM »
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Re: Iced Lightning - Thunderstorm Activity Over the Arctic Ocean
« Reply #17 on: August 14, 2019, 06:39:39 AM »
Amazing. Yes, a heartbeat or breathing or panting. Beautiful.
It seems just a day/night rhythm but I wonder why global lightnings are connected in this way.
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Sciguy

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Re: Iced Lightning - Thunderstorm Activity Over the Arctic Ocean
« Reply #18 on: August 14, 2019, 09:44:07 PM »
The Category 6 Blog on the The Weather Underground website has a good article about the lightning near the North Pole.

https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Bizarre-Happenings-Far-North-Lightning-Tropical-Moisture-and-More

Quote
Lightning near the North Pole?

Social media lit up this past weekend when a total of 48 lightning discharges were reported north of 85°N latitude, or within about 450 miles of the North Pole. The lightning came from low-topped, elevated thunderstorms that occasionally pop up over the Arctic, but seldom so close to 90°N. Elevated storms develop when moist, unstable air sits above cooler, more stable air near the surface. In this case, a surge of warm air swept toward the pole, riding atop much cooler air just above the mostly ice-covered central Arctic Ocean.

Quote
What’s most impressive about last weekend isn’t that lightning was detected so close to the North Pole, but that there was so much of it. Consider the admittedly short history of lightning detection over this northernmost part of the globe, as summarized for Category 6 by Vaisala researcher/engineer Ryan Said, developer of the GLD360 system. Since observations began in 2012, according to Said, only three prior lightning events were detected north of 85°N, and they produced a total of just nine flashes. By comparison, last weekend brought a total of 48 flashes to that region. All but seven of those were CGs, according to Said.

In the larger area north of 80°N, a typical summer brings two to five events, with several dozen flashes in all. No single event on record had produced more than about 50 flashes until July 2018, when just over 300 flashes were observed on a single day. Last weekend, more than 1000 flashes were detected. About 80% of these were CGs, Said told Category 6.


gerontocrat

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Re: Iced Lightning - Thunderstorm Activity Over the Arctic Ocean
« Reply #19 on: March 23, 2021, 12:15:51 PM »
Hot from the press......

https://news.agu.org/press-release/warming-temperatures-tripled-arctic-lightning-strikes-over-the-past-decade/

and the paper (open access for 30 days)
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2020GL091366

WARMING TEMPERATURES TRIPLED ARCTIC LIGHTNING STRIKES OVER THE PAST DECADE
Quote
WASHINGTON—Lightning strikes in the Arctic tripled from 2010 to 2020, a finding researchers attribute to rising temperatures due to human-caused climate change. The results suggest Arctic residents in northern Russia, Canada, Europe and Alaska need to prepare for the danger of more frequent lightning strikes, according to the researchers.

A new study in Geophysical Research Letters, AGU’s journal publishing high-impact, short-format reports with immediate implications spanning all Earth and space sciences, used data from the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) to map lightning strikes across the globe from 2010 to 2020 (interactive graphic). WWLLN sensors detect the short burst of radio waves emitted during a lightning strike.

Lightning in the Arctic is historically rare, as it usually isn’t warm enough to generate the right thunderstorm conditions during which lightning occurs. But researchers have recently noticed more strikes occurring in the northernmost latitudes and they even reported several lightning strikes near the north pole in August 2019. Lightning strikes that do occur in the Arctic tend to happen in the summer when thunderstorms are most likely to form.

The new study found the number of lightning strikes above 65 degrees north latitude during the summer months tripled from 2010 to 2020 as compared to the total number of lightning strikes over the entire globe during the same period.

The Arctic is warming faster than any other region on Earth, and the study authors found the uptick in lightning strikes matched rising temperatures in the region over the past decade. Arctic temperatures increased by 0.3 degrees Celsius from 2010 to 2020; that warming has created more favorable conditions for intense summer thunderstorms that produce lightning, according to the authors.

as usual, click image to enlarge
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