Lightning strikes more frequently over shipping lanes than over other stretches of water, a new study finds
After analyzing 12 years of lightning data, Joel Thornton and colleagues found two lines of enhanced activity over two of the world's busiest shipping lanes. The mechanism, researchers suspect, involves the aerosolized particulates emitted by ships. The small particles become seeds for cloud droplets and get lofted to great heights, where they can freeze, electrify, and form thunderstorm-producing cumulonimbus clouds.
Source:
http://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.1.20170928a/full/
#lightning #storm #science #naturalphenomena
I have to admit with all the radios and cell phones for work I carry. One would be wise to keep a little distance from me in a lightning storm.......
ReplyDeleteNo wonder, ships are taller than the water they ride.
ReplyDeleteGjermund Gusland Thorsen Taller, electrically, is not the same as taller physically. I would expect the "spikyness" of the ship would be more electrically a factor than its height above water. The ocean is usually going up and down due to wave action. What the ocean does not have is little metal points that may bleed off static electricity. A ship may actually be lower, electrically speaking, than the surrounding water due to its bleeding of static electricity into the air. I think what this article is referring to is the fossil fuel usage causing soot particles that seed cloud formation.
ReplyDeleteDavid Zimmerman This is how global dimming works? Some sort of self defense? Would make sense we have in my surroundings more rain at the area of Herøya than the surrounding archipelago.
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