Publications

Ranalkar, MR; Giri, RK; Pathak, L (2024). Lightning activity in India an important cause of fatalities. MAUSAM, 75(4), 1071-1084.

Abstract
Extreme weather events affected the country throughout the year in many ways, like heavy rainfall, heat waves, cold waves & lightning. Lightning activity is highly chaotic, unpredictable and random in nature. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate ChangeA(IPCC) AreportA- 2013 projects the global warming of 1-5 degrees C by the end of 21st st Century. Is this changing scenario responsible for the recent increase of deaths due to lightning? The increased concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) is closely related to this change. Small increase in surface temperature leads to an increase in thunderstorm and lightning activities. IPCC report directly not dealing with lightning activities and its future projections as it is poorly resolved by climate models. Therefore, in this work we have analysed the trends of the lightning activities in reference to upper tropospheric water vapour, convective available potential energy (CAPE), cloud ice, aerosols and surface temperature. AThese parameters are correlated both positively and negatively with lightning flash data of Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) aboard on tropical rainfall measuring mission microwave imager (TRMM), gridded temperature data of India Meteorological Department (IMD), AModerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Aand TRMM Level-2 Precipitation Radar data. It is seen that more upper troposphere temperature rise than surface temperature is an indicator of a stable atmosphere and hence fewer thunderstorms. The triggering of lightning activities can be related to the convective transport of water vapour in the atmosphere which absorbs the infrared radiation emitted by the surface of the earth; this in turn stabilizes the atmosphere at lower levels and warming at upper levels in the atmosphere. Results of the analysis shows that CAPE is positively correlated with lightning activity induced by the instability within the thunderstorm cell. Therefore, we can say that stabilization of the global mean atmosphere results in much more explosive producing more lightning activity and perhaps lead to more fatalities.

DOI:
10.54302/mausam.v75i4.6048

ISSN:
0252-9416