How To Mathematically Predict Lightning Strikes

rossgneumann writes Soon, it's very possible that when you say something like "you have better odds of being struck by lightning," that won't necessarily mean it's all that rare. And there's a good chance that you'll be able to tell that person (roughly) what the odds of that happening are. Research published this week in Nature provides an equation that is reasonably accurate at mathematically predicting lightning strikes. From the article: "There's not a whole lot of noise in Romps's estimates: CAPE [Convective Available Potential Energy] is something that can be predicted out fairly easily: "All [models] in our ensemble predict that [the United State's] mean CAPE will increase over the 21st century, with a mean increase of 11.2 percent per degree Celsius of global warming," he wrote. "Overall, the [models] predict a ~50 percent increase in the rate of lightning strikes in the United States over the 21st century."

Comments

Published in Science

[ianalis]

*not* Nature

Headline seems a little misleading

[wonkey_monkey]

How To Mathematically Predict Frequency of Lightning Strikes Over A Large Area

FTFY. Also, "mathematically"? Well, yes, some rather simple multiplication is involved, but you're also going to have to go out measure precipitation and CAPE.