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

Is that like...?

[cirby]

Predicting an increase in severe weather due to global warming (no, it hasn't happened)?

Predicting an increase in hurricanes and hurricane energy DtGW (again, no, it hasn't happened)?

Predicting a decrease in snowfall DtGW (once more, nope)?

Predicting the complete loss of the Arctic ice cap by 2014 DtGW (increasing, recently)?

Or any of the other myriad of weather-influenced increases or losses DtGW? That also, incidentally, haven't come to pass?

There is one almost-certain prediction that you can use: if someone predicts ANYTHING "due to Global Warming" with a target date of 2100, it's almost certainly wrong, wrong, wrong, and should be discarded immediately.