Lightning Enhancement in the Amazon Region Due to Urban Activity

Abstract

Urbanization has an increasing contribution to anthropogenic climate forcing. The impact arises mainly from the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect and aerosol anthropogenic emissions. An important but not completely understood consequence of this forcing is its effect on local lightning activity. Changes in lightning activity may result in a feedback on the climate system. In this article, it investigates changes in the lightning activity in the city of Manaus, located in the Amazon region of Brazil. It is found that, over the city, the lightning activity is larger than that in the regions around it and it has been increasing in the last four decades simultaneously with the increasing of its urban area. Our results suggest that such changes are caused by the UHI effect. The observations reported here are unique and relevant because Manaus is located in the central part of the Amazon rainforest and inside one of the three global lightning chimneys in the world.

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“…Our findings are in line with previous works that identified temperature as the main factor defining maize performance in the context of global change, with a prevalence of declines in yields (Bassu et al, 2014;Rose et al, 2016;Tao & Zhang, 2011). They are also consistent with recent modeling and meta-analysis reports, which observed a greater sensitivity to rising temperatures in maize than in soybean (Justino et al, 2013;Rose et al, 2016;Zhao et al, 2017). Previous reports from both CO 2 enrichment experiments and modeling studies indicated that CO 2 enrichment enhanced maize (a C4 plant) yields under drought, but under well-watered conditions yield responses were less consistent (Meng et al, 2016;Twine et al, 2013).…”

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“…Therefore, they suggest that the replacement of the forest by urban areas tends to increase the lightning activity in the Amazon region. These results were published in American Journal of Climate Change in December 2013 [1].…”

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“…Nitrogen oxides produced by lightning contribute an important part to the total NO x budget, and sometimes even become the dominant source of NO x ( Labrador et al, 2005 ). It was found that the lightning activity in Manaus city (Brazil) has been increasing throughout the last four decades ( Pinto Jr. et al, 2013 ). The coastal areas of Japan are more likely to be hit by lightning in winter ( Matsui et al, 2020 ).…”