IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v13y2022i1d10.1038_s41467-022-31714-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Coarse sea spray inhibits lightning

Author

Listed:
  • Zengxin Pan

    (Wuhan University
    The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

  • Feiyue Mao

    (Wuhan University
    Wuhan University)

  • Daniel Rosenfeld

    (Wuhan University
    The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

  • Yannian Zhu

    (Nanjing University
    Nanjing University)

  • Lin Zang

    (Wuhan University)

  • Xin Lu

    (Wuhan University)

  • Joel A. Thornton

    (University of Washington)

  • Robert H. Holzworth

    (University of Washington)

  • Jianhua Yin

    (Wuhan University)

  • Avichay Efraim

    (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

  • Wei Gong

    (Wuhan University
    Wuhan University)

Abstract

The known effects of thermodynamics and aerosols can well explain the thunderstorm activity over land, but fail over oceans. Here, tracking the full lifecycle of tropical deep convective cloud clusters shows that adding fine aerosols significantly increases the lightning density for a given rainfall amount over both ocean and land. In contrast, adding coarse sea salt (dry radius > 1 μm), known as sea spray, weakens the cloud vigor and lightning by producing fewer but larger cloud drops, which accelerate warm rain at the expense of mixed-phase precipitation. Adding coarse sea spray can reduce the lightning by 90% regardless of fine aerosol loading. These findings reconcile long outstanding questions about the differences between continental and marine thunderstorms, and help to understand lightning and underlying aerosol-cloud-precipitation interaction mechanisms and their climatic effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Zengxin Pan & Feiyue Mao & Daniel Rosenfeld & Yannian Zhu & Lin Zang & Xin Lu & Joel A. Thornton & Robert H. Holzworth & Jianhua Yin & Avichay Efraim & Wei Gong, 2022. "Coarse sea spray inhibits lightning," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-7, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-31714-5
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-31714-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-31714-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-022-31714-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christina J. Williamson & Agnieszka Kupc & Duncan Axisa & Kelsey R. Bilsback & ThaoPaul Bui & Pedro Campuzano-Jost & Maximilian Dollner & Karl D. Froyd & Anna L. Hodshire & Jose L. Jimenez & John K. K, 2019. "A large source of cloud condensation nuclei from new particle formation in the tropics," Nature, Nature, vol. 574(7778), pages 399-403, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jeffrey L. Bada, 2023. "Volcanic Island lightning prebiotic chemistry and the origin of life in the early Hadean eon," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-3, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.

      More about this item

      Statistics

      Access and download statistics

      Corrections

      All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-31714-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

      If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

      If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

      If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

      For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

      Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

      IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.