Lightning Variability in Dynamically Downscaled Simulations of Alaska’s Present and Future Summer Climate

Bieniek, Peter A.; Bhatt, Uma S.; York, Alison; Walsh, John E.; Lader, Rick; Strader, Heidi; Ziel, Robert; Jandt, Randi R.; Thoman, Richard

doi:10.1175/jamc-d-19-0209.1

Cited by 24 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 47 publications

(76 reference statements)

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“…A significant upgrade to the system in 2000 led to an increased detection accuracy and efficiency of 0.5 -2 km and 80 -90 %, respectively 46 . The replacement of the Impact lightning system with a Time of Arrival (TOA) system in 2012 resulted in a further 1.5-fold increase in the detection efficiency, and an increased accuracy stemming from the counting of strokes per flash instead of lightning flashes 48 .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Overwintering fires in boreal forests

Scholten

Jandt

Miller

et al. 2021

Nature

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Overwintering fires in boreal forests

Scholten

Jandt

Miller

et al. 2021

Nature

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“…To place the WGLC in the context of other widely used lightning data, we compared our gridded fields with two datasets based on ground-based detection networks and one from spaceborne remote sensing. We used raw stroke count data from the Alaska Lightning Detection Network (ALDN; Fronterhouse, 2012) for the years 2012-2019 and a gridded product based on https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2021-89 Studies have shown that the detection efficiency of the ALDN increased from 40-80% to 80-90% after sensors were upgraded to Vaisala Impact ES sensors in 2012 (Bieniek et al, 2020;Farukh et al, 2011). A further upgrade to a completely new set of time-of-arrival sensors (operated by TOA Systems, Inc.) was made after 2012 (Bieniek et al, 2020 Coordination Center, 2021) from the beginning of the period for which the TOA-based sensor network was operational (2012-2019).…”

Section: Comparison With Independent Observations Of Lightning Occurrmentioning

confidence: 99%

The WGLC global gridded lightning climatology and timeseries

Kaplan¹,

Lau²

2021

Preprint

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Abstract. Lightning is one of the most important atmospheric phenomena and has wide ranging influence on the Earth System, but few long-term observational datasets of lightning occurrence and distribution are currently freely available. Here we analyze global lightning activity over the second decade of the 21st century using a new global, high-resolution gridded timeseries and climatology of lightning stroke density based on raw data from the World-Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN). While the total number of strokes detected increases from 2010–2014, an adjustment for detection efficiency reduces this artificial trend. The global distribution of lightning shows the well-known pattern of greatest density over the three tropical terrestrial regions of the Americas, Africa, and the Maritime Continent, but we also noticed substantial temporal variability over the 11 years of record, with more lightning in the tropics from 2012–2015 and increasing lightning in the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere from 2016–2020. Although the total number of strokes detected globally was constant, mean stroke power decreases significantly from a peak in 2013 to the lowest levels on record in 2020. Evaluation with independent observational networks shows that while the WWLLN does not capture peak seasonal lightning densities, it does represent the majority of powerful lightning strokes. The resulting gridded lightning dataset (Kaplan and Lau, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.904253) is freely available and will be useful for a range of studies in climate, earth system, and natural hazards research, including direct use as input data to models and as evaluation data for independent simulations of lightning occurrence.

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“…Under future climate change, an overall increase in fires is expected in the Arctic Council region, indicating that associ-ated emissions are also likely to increase. For instance, natural fires, defined as lightning-caused fires, may increase as lightning is predicted to increase (Púčik et al, 2017;Veraverbeke et al, 2017;Bieniek et al, 2020), under Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) 4.5 (stabilizing emissions) and 8.5 (high emissions) developed for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). Likewise, using the same scenarios, wildfire emissions of BC, CO, NO x , PM 2.5 , and SO 2 could exceed anthropogenic emissions in northeastern Europe, including Sweden and Finland, by 2090 (Knorr et al, 2016).…”

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confidence: 99%

Reviews and syntheses: Arctic fire regimes and emissions in the 21st century

et al. 2021

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Abstract. In recent years, the pan-Arctic region has experienced increasingly extreme fire seasons. Fires in the northern high latitudes are driven by current and future climate change, lightning, fuel conditions, and human activity. In this context, conceptualizing and parameterizing current and future Arctic fire regimes will be important for fire and land management as well as understanding current and predicting future fire emissions. The objectives of this review were driven by policy questions identified by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) Working Group and posed to its Expert Group on Short-Lived Climate Forcers. This review synthesizes current understanding of the changing Arctic and boreal fire regimes, particularly as fire activity and its response to future climate change in the pan-Arctic have consequences for Arctic Council states aiming to mitigate and adapt to climate change in the north. The conclusions from our synthesis are the following. (1) Current and future Arctic fires, and the adjacent boreal region, are driven by natural (i.e. lightning) and human-caused ignition sources, including fires caused by timber and energy extraction, prescribed burning for landscape management, and tourism activities. Little is published in the scientific literature about cultural burning by Indigenous populations across the pan-Arctic, and questions remain on the source of ignitions above 70∘ N in Arctic Russia. (2) Climate change is expected to make Arctic fires more likely by increasing the likelihood of extreme fire weather, increased lightning activity, and drier vegetative and ground fuel conditions. (3) To some extent, shifting agricultural land use and forest transitions from forest–steppe to steppe, tundra to taiga, and coniferous to deciduous in a warmer climate may increase and decrease open biomass burning, depending on land use in addition to climate-driven biome shifts. However, at the country and landscape scales, these relationships are not well established. (4) Current black carbon and PM2.5 emissions from wildfires above 50 and 65∘ N are larger than emissions from the anthropogenic sectors of residential combustion, transportation, and flaring. Wildfire emissions have increased from 2010 to 2020, particularly above 60∘ N, with 56 % of black carbon emissions above 65∘ N in 2020 attributed to open biomass burning – indicating how extreme the 2020 wildfire season was and how severe future Arctic wildfire seasons can potentially be. (5) What works in the boreal zones to prevent and fight wildfires may not work in the Arctic. Fire management will need to adapt to a changing climate, economic development, the Indigenous and local communities, and fragile northern ecosystems, including permafrost and peatlands. (6) Factors contributing to the uncertainty of predicting and quantifying future Arctic fire regimes include underestimation of Arctic fires by satellite systems, lack of agreement between Earth observations and official statistics, and still needed refinements of location, conditions, and previous fire return intervals on peat and permafrost landscapes. This review highlights that much research is needed in order to understand the local and regional impacts of the changing Arctic fire regime on emissions and the global climate, ecosystems, and pan-Arctic communities.

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Lightning Variability in Dynamically Downscaled Simulations of Alaska’s Present and Future Summer Climate

Cited by 24 publications

References 47 publications

Overwintering fires in boreal forests

Overwintering fires in boreal forests

The WGLC global gridded lightning climatology and timeseries

Reviews and syntheses: Arctic fire regimes and emissions in the 21st century

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