Quantum simulation is an important application of future quantum computers with applications in quantum chemistry, condensed matter, and beyond. Quantum

Lightning plays an important role in atmospheric chemistry and in the initiation of wildfires, but the impact of global warming on lightning rates is poorly constrained. Here we propose that the lightning flash rate is proportional to the convective available potential energy (CAPE) times the precipitation rate. Using observations, the product of CAPE and precipitation explains 77% of the variance in the time series of total cloud-to-ground lightning flashes over the contiguous United States (CONUS). Storms convert CAPE times precipitated water mass to discharged lightning energy with an efficiency of 1%. When this proxy is applied to 11 climate models, CONUS lightning strikes are predicted to increase 12 ± 5% per degree Celsius of global warming and about 50% over this century.

Quantum chemistry is an important area of application for quantum computation. In particular, quantum algorithms applied to the electronic structure problem promise exact, efficient methods for determination of the electronic energy of atoms and molecules. The Bravyi-Kitaev transformation is a method of mapping the occupation state of a fermionic system onto qubits. This transformation maps the Hamiltonian of n interacting fermions to an Oðlog nÞ-local Hamiltonian of n qubits. This is an improvement in locality over the JordanWigner transformation, which results in an O(n)-local qubit Hamiltonian. We present the Bravyi-Kitaev transformation in detail, introducing the sets of qubits which must be acted on to change occupancy and parity of states in the occupation number basis. We give recursive definitions of these sets and of the transformation and inverse transformation matrices, which relate the occupation number basis and the BravyiKitaev basis. We then compare the use of the Jordan-Wigner and Bravyi-Kitaev Hamiltonians for the quantum simulation of methane using the STO-6G basis.