Lightning-caused fires in the Alps: Identifying the igniting strokes

Moris, Jose V.; Conedera, Marco; Nisi, Luca; Bernardi, M.; Cesti, Giancarlo; Pezzatti, Gianni Boris

doi:10.1016/j.agrformet.2020.107990

Cited by 38 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…However, European studies are rare. Lightning is the major cause of ignition in the European boreal forests (Granström, 2001;Larjavaara et al, 2005b, a;Granström and Niklasson, 2008;Rolstad et al, 2017) and one of the main causes of ignition in the Alps (Conedera et al, 2006;Moris et al, 2020). In the Mediterranean Basin, lightning causes about 5 % of the total number of forest fires (Vázquez and Moreno, 1998;Camia et al, 2010;Koutsias et al, 2013), while the rest of fires are caused by humans.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The amount of precipitation at the surface (Colson, 1960;Hall, 2007) and the type of vegetation (Pineda et al, 2014;Gora et al, 2017;Baranovskiy and Yankovich, 2018) play a key role in the ignition of wildfires. Most of LIWs occur in forests with conifer vegetation (Krawchuk et al, 2006;Reineking et al, 2010;Müller et al, 2013;Pineda and Rigo, 2017;Moris et al, 2020), where dry thunderstorms and strong winds favor the ignition, survival, and arrival of fire (Rorig et al, 2007;Pineda and Rigo, 2017). The definition of a dry thunderstorm is not homogeneous in the literature.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Lightning-ignited wildfires and long continuing current lightning in the Mediterranean Basin: preferential meteorological conditions

et al. 2021

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Abstract. Lightning is the major cause of the natural ignition of wildfires worldwide and produces the largest wildfires in some regions. Lightning strokes produce about 5 % of forest fires in the Mediterranean Basin and are one of the most important precursors of the largest forest fires during the summer. Lightning-ignited wildfires produce significant emissions of aerosols, black carbon, and trace gases, such as CO, SO2, CH4, and O3, affecting air quality. Characterization of the meteorological and cloud conditions of lightning-ignited wildfires in the Mediterranean Basin can serve to improve fire forecasting models and to upgrade the implementation of fire emissions in atmospheric models. This study investigates the meteorological and cloud conditions of lightning-ignited wildfires (LIWs) and long continuing current (LCC) lightning flashes in the Iberian Peninsula and Greece. LCC lightning and lightning in dry thunderstorms with a low precipitation rate have been proposed to be the main precursors of the largest wildfires. We use lightning data provided by the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN), the Earth Networks Total Lightning Network (ENTLN), and the Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) on board the International Space Station (ISS), together with four databases of wildfires produced in Spain, Portugal, southern France, and Greece, respectively, in order to produce a climatology of LIWs and LCC lightning over the Mediterranean Basin. In addition, we use meteorological data provided by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) ERA5 reanalysis data set and by the Spanish State Meteorological Agency (AEMET), together with the Cloud Top Height product (CTHP) derived from Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellites measurements to investigate the meteorological conditions of LIWs and LCC lightning. According to our results, LIWs and a significant amount of LCC lightning flashes tend to occur in dry thunderstorms with weak updrafts. Our results suggest that LIWs tend to occur in clouds with a high base and with a vertical content of moisture lower than the climatological value, as well as with a higher temperature and a lower precipitation rate. Meteorological conditions of LIWs from the Iberian Peninsula and Greece are in agreement, although some differences possibly caused by the highly variable topography in Greece and a more humid environment are observed. These results show the possibility of using the typical meteorological and cloud conditions of LCC lightning flashes as proxy to parameterize the ignition of wildfires in atmospheric or forecasting models.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lightning-ignited wildfires and long continuing current lightning in the Mediterranean Basin: preferential meteorological conditions

et al. 2021

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“…Various studies have focused on the more energetic +CG flashes due to their more severe effects. Large charge transfer associated with continuing current (CC) commonly seen in +CG flashes gives them higher capacity to ignite forest fires compared to negative ones (Latham & Williams, 2001; Moris et al., 2020). +CG flashes initiate the vast majority of large‐scale electric discharges in the mesosphere that are named sprites (Boccippio et al., 1995; Williams et al., 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multiple Strokes Along the Same Channel to Ground in Positive Lightning Produced by a Supercell

Zhu

Bitzer

Rakov

et al. 2021

Geophysical Research Letters

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Previous studies have shown that subsequent leaders in positive cloud‐to‐ground lightning (+CG) flashes rarely traverse pre‐existing channels to ground. In this paper, we present evidence that this actually can be common, at least for some thunderstorms. Observations of +CG flashes in a supercell storm in Argentina by Córdoba Argentina Marx Meter Array (CAMMA) are presented, in which 54 (64%) of 84 multiple‐stroke +CG flashes had subsequent leaders following a pre‐existing channel to ground. These subsequent positive leaders are found to behave similarly to their negative counterparts, including propagation speeds along pre‐existing channels with a median of 8 × 106 m/s, which is comparable to that of negative dart leaders. Two representative multiple‐stroke +CG flashes are presented and discussed in detail. The observations reported herein call for an update to the traditional explanation of the disparity between positive and negative lightning.

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“…However, European studies are rare. Lightning is the major cause of ignition in the European boreal forests (Granström, 2001;Larjavaara et al, 2005b, a;Granström and Niklasson, 2008;Rolstad et al, 2017) and one of the main cause of ignition in the Alps (Conedera et al, 2006;Moris et al, 2020). In the Mediterranean basin, lightning causes about 5% of the total number of forest fires (Vázquez and Moreno, 1998;Camia et al, 2010;Koutsias et al, 2013), while the rest of fires are man-caused.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(Colson, 1960;Hall, 2007) and the type of vegetation (Pineda et al, 2014;Gora et al, 2017;Baranovskiy and Yankovich, 2018) play a key role in the ignition of wildfires. Most of LIW occur in forest with conifer vegetation (Krawchuk et al, 2006;Reineking et al, 2010;Müller et al, 2013;Pineda and Rigo, 2017;Moris et al, 2020), where dry thunderstorms and strong winds favor the ignition, survival and arrival of fire (Rorig et al, 2007;Pineda and Rigo, 2017). The definition of dry thunderstorm is not homogeneous in the literature.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lightning-ignited wildfires and long-continuing-current lightning in the Mediterranean Basin: Preferential meteorological conditions

Pérez‐Invernón¹,

Huntrieser²,

Soler³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Abstract. Lightning is the major cause of natural ignition of wildfires worldwide and produces the largest wildfires in some regions. Lightning strokes produce about 5 % of forest fires in the Mediterranean basin and are one of the most important precursors of the largest forest fires during the summer. Lightning-ignited wildfires produce significant emissions of aerosols, black carbon and trace gases, such as CO, SO2, CH4 and O3, affecting air quality. Characterization of the meteorological and cloud conditions of lightning-ignited wildfires in the Mediterranean basin can serve to improve fire forecasting models and to upgrade the implementation of fire emissions in atmospheric models. This study investigates the meteorological and cloud conditions of Lightning-Ignited Wildfires (LIW) and Long-Continuing-Current (LCC) lightning flashes in the Iberian Peninsula and Greece. LCC lightning and lightning in dry thunderstorms with low precipitation rate have been proposed to be the main precursors of the largest wildfires. We use lightning data provided by the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN), the Earth Network Total Lightning Network (ENTLN) and the Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) onboard the International Space Station (ISS) together with four databases of wildfires produced in Spain, Portugal, Southern France and Greece, respectively, in order to produce a climatology of LIW and LCC lightning over the Mediterranean basin. In addition, we use meteorological data provided by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) ERA5-reanalysis data set and by the Spanish State Meteorological Agency (AEMET) together with the Cloud Top Height (CTH) product derived from Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellites measurements to investigate the meteorological conditions of LIW and LCC lightning. According to our results, LIW and a significant amount of LCC lightning flashes tend to occur in dry thunderstorms with weak updrafts. Our results suggest that lightning-ignited wildfires tend to occur in high-based clouds with a vertical content of moisture lower than the climatological value, as well as with a higher temperature and a lower precipitation rate. Meteorological conditions of LIW from the Iberian Peninsula and Greece are in agreement, although some differences possibly caused by highly variable topography in Greece and a more humid environment are observed. These results show the possibility of using the typical meteorological and cloud conditions of LCC lightning flashes as proxy to parameterize the ignition of wildfires in atmospheric or forecasting models.

show abstract

Lightning-caused fires in the Alps: Identifying the igniting strokes

Cited by 38 publications

References 42 publications

Lightning-ignited wildfires and long continuing current lightning in the Mediterranean Basin: preferential meteorological conditions

Lightning-ignited wildfires and long continuing current lightning in the Mediterranean Basin: preferential meteorological conditions

Multiple Strokes Along the Same Channel to Ground in Positive Lightning Produced by a Supercell

Lightning-ignited wildfires and long-continuing-current lightning in the Mediterranean Basin: Preferential meteorological conditions

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