The climate impact of aerosols on the lightning flash rate: is it detectable from long-term measurements?

Wang, Qianqian; Li, Zhanqing; Guo, Jianping; Zhao, Chuanfeng; Cribb, Maureen

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-12797-2018

Articles | Volume 18, issue 17

Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 12797–12816, 2018

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-12797-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 12797–12816, 2018

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-12797-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 17

Research article 06 Sep 2018

Research article | 06 Sep 2018

The climate impact of aerosols on the lightning flash rate: is it detectable from long-term measurements?

Qianqian Wang et al.

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Final revised paper (published on 06 Sep 2018)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 04 Apr 2018)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Short comment', Anonymous Referee #1, 06 May 2018
- SC1: 'Reply to RC1', Qianqian Wang, 12 May 2018
  - AC2: 'revised responses to reviewer 1', Zhanqing Li, 24 Jul 2018
RC2: 'Referee report', Earle Williams, 04 Jun 2018
- AC1: 'response to the comments by reviewer 2', Zhanqing Li, 24 Jul 2018

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Zhanqing Li on behalf of the Authors (26 Jul 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (06 Aug 2018) by Jianping Huang

Short summary

Based on 11-year data of lightning flashes, aerosol optical depth (AOD) and composion, and meteorological variables, we investigated the roles of aerosol and meteorological variables in lightning. Pronounced differences in lightning were found between clean and polluted conditions. Systematic changes of boomerang shape were found in lightning frequency with AOD, with a turning point around AOD = 0.3, beyond which lightning activity is saturated for smoke aerosols but always suppressed by dust.