Articles | Volume 21, issue 14
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-11161-2021
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-11161-2021
Research article
 | 
23 Jul 2021
Research article |  | 23 Jul 2021

Lightning occurrences and intensity over the Indian region: long-term trends and future projections

Rohit Chakraborty, Arindam Chakraborty, Ghouse Basha, and Madineni Venkat Ratnam

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Cited articles

Banerjee, A., Archibald, A. T., Maycock, A. C., Telford, P., Abraham, N. L., Yang, X., Braesicke, P., and Pyle, J. A.: Lightning NOx, a key chemistry–climate interaction: impacts of future climate change and consequences for tropospheric oxidising capacity, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 9871–9881, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-9871-2014, 2014. 
Barros, A. P. and Lang, T. J.: Exploring spatial modes of variability of terrain-atmosphere interactions in the Himalayas during monsoon onset, Hydrosci. Rep. Ser. 03–001, 51, Div. of Eng. and Appl. Sci., Harvard Univ., Cambridge, Mass., 2003. 
Basha, G., Kishore, P., Ratnam, M. V., Jayaraman, A., Kouchak, A. A., Ouarda, T. B. M. J., and Velicogna, I.: Historical and Projected Surface Temperature over India during 20th and 21st century, Sci. Rep.-UK, 7, 2987, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-02130-3, 2017. 
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Boeck, W. L., Mach, D., Goodman, S. J., and Christian Jr., H. J.: Optical observations of lightning in Northern India, Himalayan mountain countries and Tibet, in 11th International Conference on Atmospheric Electricity, NASA Conf. Publ., NASA/CP-1999-209261, 420–423, 1999. 
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Short summary
In this study, urbanization-induced surface warming has been found to trigger prominent changes in upper-troposphere–lower-stratosphere regions leading to stronger and more frequent lightning extremes over India. Consequently, the implementation of this hypothesis in global climate models reveals that lightning frequency and intensity values across India will rise by ~10–25 % and 15–50 %, respectively, by 2100 at the current urbanization rate, which should be alarming for present policymakers.
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