Global impact of lightning-produced oxidants

Mao, J.; Zhao, Tianlang; Keller, Christoph A.; Wang, Xuan; McFarland, Patrick J.; Jenkins, Jena M.; Brune, William H.

doi:10.1002/essoar.10507797.1

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 27 publications

(33 reference statements)

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“…The ratio of O 3 to HO x is 14 ± 2 for this experiment in which the water vapor fraction was 0.012. This ratio is coincidently the same as that obtained in thunderstorm anvils during the DC3 airborne study in 2012 ( 16 ).…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 88%

Extreme hydroxyl amounts generated by thunderstorm-induced corona on grounded metal objects

Brune

Jenkins

Olson

et al. 2022

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Atmospheric electrical discharges are now known to generate unexpectedly large amounts of the atmosphere’s primary oxidant, hydroxyl (OH), in thunderstorm anvils, where electrical discharges are caused by atmospheric charge separation. The question is “Do other electrical discharges also generate large amounts of oxidants?” In this paper, we demonstrate that corona formed on grounded metal objects under thunderstorms produce extreme amounts of OH, hydroperoxyl (HO 2 ), and ozone (O 3 ). Hundreds of parts per trillion to parts per billion of OH and HO 2 were measured during seven thunderstorms that passed over the rooftop site during an air quality study in Houston, TX in summer 2006. A combination of analysis of these field results and laboratory experiments shows that these extreme oxidant amounts were generated by corona on the inlet of the OH-measuring instrument and that corona are easier to generate on lightning rods than on the inlet. In the laboratory, increasing the electric field increased OH, HO 2 , and O 3 , with 14 times more O 3 generated than OH and HO 2 , which were equal. Calculations show that corona on lightning rods can annually generate OH that is 10–100 times ambient amounts within centimeters of the lightning rod and on high-voltage electrical power lines can generate OH that is 500 times ambient a meter away from the corona. Contrary to current thinking, previously unrecognized corona-generated OH, not corona-generated UV radiation, mostly likely initiates premature degradation of high-voltage polymer insulators.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 88%

Extreme hydroxyl amounts generated by thunderstorm-induced corona on grounded metal objects

Brune

Jenkins

Olson

et al. 2022

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…As a long‐distance discharge phenomenon in nature, lightning not only poses serious risks to human beings but causes wildfires as well, which in turn affect the evolution of species and ecosystems (He et al., 2022; Hessilt et al., 2022). Lightning is the only natural source of nitrogen oxides (NOx) in the troposphere which regulates the oxidation ability in the upper troposphere and modulates tropospheric chemistry (Brune et al., 2021; Mao et al., 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Significantly Increased Lightning Activity Over the Tibetan Plateau and Its Relation to Thunderstorm Genesis

Qie

Wei

et al. 2022

Geophysical Research Letters

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As a long-distance discharge phenomenon in nature, lightning not only poses serious risks to human beings but causes wildfires as well, which in turn affect the evolution of species and ecosystems (He et al., 2022;Hessilt et al., 2022). Lightning is the only natural source of nitrogen oxides (NOx) in the troposphere which regulates the oxidation ability in the upper troposphere and modulates tropospheric chemistry (Brune et al., 2021;Mao et al., 2021).Lightning activity shows large spatial heterogeneity on the globe with several lightning chimney regions around the equator (

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Cluster-based characterization of multi-dimensional tropospheric ozone variability in coastal regions: an analysis of lidar measurements and model results

Bernier

Wang²,

Gronoff³

et al. 2022

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

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Abstract. Coastal regions are susceptible to multiple complex dynamic and chemical mechanisms and emission sources that lead to frequently observed large tropospheric ozone variations. These large ozone variations occur on a mesoscale and have proven to be arduous to simulate using chemical transport models (CTMs). We present a clustering analysis of multi-dimensional measurements from ozone lidar in conjunction with both an offline GEOS-Chem chemical-transport model (CTM) simulation and the online GEOS-Chem simulation GEOS-CF, to investigate the vertical and temporal variability of coastal ozone during three recent air quality campaigns: 2017 Ozone Water-Land Environmental Transition Study (OWLETS)-1, 2018 OWLETS-2, and 2018 Long Island Sound Tropospheric Ozone Study (LISTOS). We developed and tested a clustering method that resulted in five ozone profile curtain clusters. The established five clusters all varied significantly in ozone magnitude vertically and temporally, which allowed us to characterize the coastal ozone behavior. The lidar clusters provided a simplified way to evaluate the two CTMs for their performance of diverse coastal ozone cases. An overall evaluation of the models reveals good agreement (R≈0.70) in the low-level altitude range (0 to 2000 m), with a low and unsystematic bias for GEOS-Chem and a high systemic positive bias for GEOS-CF. The mid-level (2000–4000 m) performances show a high systematic negative bias for GEOS-Chem and an overall low unsystematic bias for GEOS-CF and a generally weak agreement to the lidar observations (R=0.12 and 0.22, respectively). Evaluating cluster-by-cluster model performance reveals additional model insight that is overlooked in the overall model performance. Utilizing the full vertical and diurnal ozone distribution information specific to lidar measurements, this work provides new insights on model proficiency in complex coastal regions.

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Global impact of lightning-produced oxidants

Cited by 3 publications

References 27 publications

Extreme hydroxyl amounts generated by thunderstorm-induced corona on grounded metal objects

Extreme hydroxyl amounts generated by thunderstorm-induced corona on grounded metal objects

Significantly Increased Lightning Activity Over the Tibetan Plateau and Its Relation to Thunderstorm Genesis

Cluster-based characterization of multi-dimensional tropospheric ozone variability in coastal regions: an analysis of lidar measurements and model results

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