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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."
More electrical energy, free for the harvesting! Commence construction of the giant Leyden jars!
I don't have access to the article, but at what resolution does the equation cease to provide informative predictions? I'm guessing that if you provided the required observations for a 1 m^2 patch of land, it's going to give you a ridiculously small frequency of lightening strikes.
For not predicting when and where the lightning is going to strike. 10 year jail sentence if no one dies. Manslaughter otherwise.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
*not* Nature
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.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Predicting an increase in severe weather due to global warming (no, it hasn't happened)?
Do you ignore the recent extreme temperature records on purpose, or what exactly do you consider "severe weather"?
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/18888-embarrassing-predictions-haunt-the-global-warming-industry
I'm sorry, but anything that claims that global cooling has ever been a widely accepted thing is simply bullshit. Why, they published it in Newsweek! That's a respected scientific journal...oh wait, it isn't. OK, scratch that. It's bullshit after all.
Ezekiel 23:20
Do you ignore the recent extreme temperature records on purpose, or what exactly do you consider "severe weather"?
I consider actual severe weather as predicted, not the supposed "extreme" temperature records (which aren't that far out of normal).
We were told that hurricanes, for example, would be increasing dramatically in the short term. The incidence of hurricanes - and hurricane severity - has gone down, for much the same reason as the article gives for increased lightning strikes.
We were told that snow would be a "thing of the past" in many parts of the world (such as the United Kingdom) by now. Nope.
Tornadoes increasing in frequency and power? For the same reason, AGAIN? Not so much.
The only straw you have to grasp at is "temperature extremes" - which aren't that extreme, and which are mostly showing up in urban centers, due to the Urban Heat Island effect. They're having some severe issues with measurement. For example, they set a new high temperature record for May (102 F) in Wichita, Kansas - but that "record" was at a thermometer surrounded by asphalt, in the middle of an airport, which has been surrounded by developments since the original record was set in 1933...
You should note, by the way, that the "scientific" global warming prediction wasn't for high temperature records, but for higher low temperatures at night and at higher latitudes.
We were told that hurricanes, for example, would be increasing dramatically in the short term. The incidence of hurricanes - and hurricane severity - has gone down, for much the same reason as the article gives for increased lightning strikes.
The number of tropical storms (which includes hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones) hasn't necessarily increased but there is scientific evidence that the severity has increased. Here's one study from 2005.
Yes lightning produces nitrogen oxides which in turn can produce ozone. From a post on the study by Dr. Jeff Masters at .
Increased lightning will create more ozone pollution and more global warming
Lightning creates nitrogen oxides, which in turn react to make significant amounts of ozone in the lower atmosphere--a dangerous pollutant that seriously impacts human health and crop growth. Ozone is also a greenhouse gas, so global warming-caused increases in lightning could potentially cause additional global warming of a few percent. How much is uncertain, as estimates of lightning-produced nitrogen oxides vary by up to a factor of four. Lower-atmosphere ozone was responsible for about 12% of human-caused global warming due to greenhouse gases in 2011, according to the 2013 IPCC report. However, increased ozone due to lightning could be offset somewhat by the fact that lightning-created nitrogen oxides trigger chemical reactions that help destroy methane, another potent greenhouse gas.