Articles | Volume 21, issue 23
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17529-2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17529-2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
02 Dec 2021
Research article |
| 02 Dec 2021
| 02 Dec 2021
Lightning-ignited wildfires and long continuing current lightning in the Mediterranean Basin: preferential meteorological conditions
Francisco J. Pérez-Invernón
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany
Heidi Huntrieser
Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany
Sergio Soler
Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía s/n, 18008 Granada, Spain
Francisco J. Gordillo-Vázquez
Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía s/n, 18008 Granada, Spain
Nicolau Pineda
Meteorological Service of Catalonia, Carrer Berlín 38–46, 08029 Barcelona, Spain
Lightning Research Group, Technical University of Catalonia, Campus de Terrassa, Edifici TR1, Carrer Colom 1, Terrassa, 08222 Barcelona, Spain
Javier Navarro-González
Image Processing Laboratory, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain
Víctor Reglero
Image Processing Laboratory, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain
Joan Montanyà
Lightning Research Group, Technical University of Catalonia, Campus de Terrassa, Edifici TR1, Carrer Colom 1, Terrassa, 08222 Barcelona, Spain
Oscar van der Velde
Lightning Research Group, Technical University of Catalonia, Campus de Terrassa, Edifici TR1, Carrer Colom 1, Terrassa, 08222 Barcelona, Spain
Nikos Koutsias
Department of Environmental Engineering, University of Patras, G. Seferi 2, Agrinio GR-30100, Greece
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Francisco J. Pérez-Invernón, Francisco J. Gordillo-Vázquez, Oscar van der Velde, Joan Montanyà, Jesús Alberto López Trujillo, Nicolau Pineda, Diego Loyola, Sora Seo, Christoph Knote, Alexandre O. Fierro, and Heidi Huntrieser
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Lightning is a major source of atmospheric pollutants. This study uses advanced satellite and ground-based data to show how lightning characteristics, such as length, brightness, and duration, affect the production of these pollutants in storms over Spain’s Ebro Valley.
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Sudden local ozone (O3) enhancements have been reported in different regions of the world since the 1970s. While the hot channel of lightning strokes directly produce significant amounts of nitrogen oxide, no direct emission of O3 is expected. Corona discharges in convective active regions could explain local O3 increases, which remains unexplained. We present the first mathematical functions that relate the global annual frequency of in-cloud coronas with four sets of meteorological variables.
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Sprites are electrical discharges that occur in the upper atmosphere. Recent modelling and observational data suggest that they may have a measurable impact on atmospheric chemistry. We incorporate both the occurrence rate of sprites and their production of chemical species into a chemistry–climate model. While our results indicate that sprites have a minimal global influence on atmospheric chemistry, they underscore their noteworthy importance at a regional scale.
Jose V. Moris, Pedro Álvarez-Álvarez, Marco Conedera, Annalie Dorph, Thomas D. Hessilt, Hugh G. P. Hunt, Renata Libonati, Lucas S. Menezes, Mortimer M. Müller, Francisco J. Pérez-Invernón, Gianni B. Pezzatti, Nicolau Pineda, Rebecca C. Scholten, Sander Veraverbeke, B. Mike Wotton, and Davide Ascoli
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This work describes a database on holdover times of lightning-ignited wildfires (LIWs). Holdover time is defined as the time between lightning-induced fire ignition and fire detection. The database contains 42 datasets built with data on more than 152 375 LIWs from 13 countries in five continents from 1921 to 2020. This database is the first freely-available, harmonized and ready-to-use global source of holdover time data, which may be used to investigate LIWs and model the holdover phenomenon.
Francisco J. Pérez-Invernón, Heidi Huntrieser, Thilo Erbertseder, Diego Loyola, Pieter Valks, Song Liu, Dale J. Allen, Kenneth E. Pickering, Eric J. Bucsela, Patrick Jöckel, Jos van Geffen, Henk Eskes, Sergio Soler, Francisco J. Gordillo-Vázquez, and Jeff Lapierre
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 15, 3329–3351, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-3329-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-3329-2022, 2022
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Lightning, one of the major sources of nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere, contributes to the tropospheric concentration of ozone and to the oxidizing capacity of the atmosphere. In this work, we contribute to improving the estimation of lightning-produced nitrogen oxides in the Ebro Valley and the Pyrenees by using two different TROPOMI products and comparing the results.
Francisco J. Pérez-Invernón, Heidi Huntrieser, Patrick Jöckel, and Francisco J. Gordillo-Vázquez
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Qinzeng Li, Jiyao Xu, Wei Yuan, Angel An, Shengyang Gu, Oscar A. van der Velde, Yajun Zhu, and Xiaolong Wei
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On 19 May 2022, a powerful thunderstorm outbreak south of the Himalayas produced both unusual high-altitude lightning and large atmospheric waves. Using satellite and ground-based observations, we tracked the waves over distances exceeding 3000 kilometers. Some waves observed at the highest altitudes were likely generated by the breakdown of earlier waves. The results show how severe storms can affect atmospheric regions far above the weather systems that create them.
Francisco J. Pérez-Invernón, Francisco J. Gordillo-Vázquez, Oscar van der Velde, Joan Montanyà, Jesús Alberto López Trujillo, Nicolau Pineda, Diego Loyola, Sora Seo, Christoph Knote, Alexandre O. Fierro, and Heidi Huntrieser
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This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
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Lightning is a major source of atmospheric pollutants. This study uses advanced satellite and ground-based data to show how lightning characteristics, such as length, brightness, and duration, affect the production of these pollutants in storms over Spain’s Ebro Valley.
Eric Förster, Heidi Huntrieser, Michael Lichtenstern, Falk Pätzold, Lutz Bretschneider, Andreas Schlerf, Sven Bollmann, Astrid Lampert, Jarosław Nęcki, Paweł Jagoda, Justyna Swolkień, Dominika Pasternak, Robert A. Field, and Anke Roiger
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We introduce a helicopter-borne mass balance approach, utilizing the HELiPOD platform, to accurately quantify methane (CH4) emissions from coal mining activities. The comparison of our top-down mass flux estimates (up to 3000 kg h−1) against those from bottom-up in-mine CH4 safety sensors revealed very good agreement. This approach also has a great potential in quantifying emission source strengths (down to 20 kg h−1) from a wide range of other CH4 emitters (e.g. landfills, oil & gas industry).
Francisco J. Pérez-Invernón, Francisco J. Gordillo-Vázquez, Heidi Huntrieser, Patrick Jöckel, and Eric J. Bucsela
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Lightning plays a significant role in tropospheric chemistry by producing substantial amounts of nitrogen oxides. According to recent estimates, thunderstorms that produce a higher lightning frequency rate also produce less nitrogen oxide per flash. We implemented the dependency of nitrogen oxide production per flash on lightning flash frequency in a chemical atmospheric model.
Sergio Soler, Francisco J. Gordillo-Vázquez, Francisco J. Pérez-Invernón, Patrick Jöckel, Torsten Neubert, Olivier Chanrion, Victor Reglero, and Nikolai Østgaard
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 10225–10243, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10225-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10225-2024, 2024
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Sudden local ozone (O3) enhancements have been reported in different regions of the world since the 1970s. While the hot channel of lightning strokes directly produce significant amounts of nitrogen oxide, no direct emission of O3 is expected. Corona discharges in convective active regions could explain local O3 increases, which remains unexplained. We present the first mathematical functions that relate the global annual frequency of in-cloud coronas with four sets of meteorological variables.
Francisco J. Pérez-Invernón, Francisco J. Gordillo-Vázquez, Alejandro Malagón-Romero, and Patrick Jöckel
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 3577–3592, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-3577-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-3577-2024, 2024
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Sprites are electrical discharges that occur in the upper atmosphere. Recent modelling and observational data suggest that they may have a measurable impact on atmospheric chemistry. We incorporate both the occurrence rate of sprites and their production of chemical species into a chemistry–climate model. While our results indicate that sprites have a minimal global influence on atmospheric chemistry, they underscore their noteworthy importance at a regional scale.
Jose V. Moris, Pedro Álvarez-Álvarez, Marco Conedera, Annalie Dorph, Thomas D. Hessilt, Hugh G. P. Hunt, Renata Libonati, Lucas S. Menezes, Mortimer M. Müller, Francisco J. Pérez-Invernón, Gianni B. Pezzatti, Nicolau Pineda, Rebecca C. Scholten, Sander Veraverbeke, B. Mike Wotton, and Davide Ascoli
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 15, 1151–1163, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-1151-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-1151-2023, 2023
Short summary
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This work describes a database on holdover times of lightning-ignited wildfires (LIWs). Holdover time is defined as the time between lightning-induced fire ignition and fire detection. The database contains 42 datasets built with data on more than 152 375 LIWs from 13 countries in five continents from 1921 to 2020. This database is the first freely-available, harmonized and ready-to-use global source of holdover time data, which may be used to investigate LIWs and model the holdover phenomenon.
Francisco J. Pérez-Invernón, Heidi Huntrieser, Thilo Erbertseder, Diego Loyola, Pieter Valks, Song Liu, Dale J. Allen, Kenneth E. Pickering, Eric J. Bucsela, Patrick Jöckel, Jos van Geffen, Henk Eskes, Sergio Soler, Francisco J. Gordillo-Vázquez, and Jeff Lapierre
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 15, 3329–3351, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-3329-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-3329-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Lightning, one of the major sources of nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere, contributes to the tropospheric concentration of ozone and to the oxidizing capacity of the atmosphere. In this work, we contribute to improving the estimation of lightning-produced nitrogen oxides in the Ebro Valley and the Pyrenees by using two different TROPOMI products and comparing the results.
Nicolau Pineda, Juan Carlos Peña, Xavier Soler, Montse Aran, and Núria Pérez-Zanón
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M. Dolores Andrés Hernández, Andreas Hilboll, Helmut Ziereis, Eric Förster, Ovid O. Krüger, Katharina Kaiser, Johannes Schneider, Francesca Barnaba, Mihalis Vrekoussis, Jörg Schmidt, Heidi Huntrieser, Anne-Marlene Blechschmidt, Midhun George, Vladyslav Nenakhov, Theresa Harlass, Bruna A. Holanda, Jennifer Wolf, Lisa Eirenschmalz, Marc Krebsbach, Mira L. Pöhlker, Anna B. Kalisz Hedegaard, Linlu Mei, Klaus Pfeilsticker, Yangzhuoran Liu, Ralf Koppmann, Hans Schlager, Birger Bohn, Ulrich Schumann, Andreas Richter, Benjamin Schreiner, Daniel Sauer, Robert Baumann, Mariano Mertens, Patrick Jöckel, Markus Kilian, Greta Stratmann, Christopher Pöhlker, Monica Campanelli, Marco Pandolfi, Michael Sicard, José L. Gómez-Amo, Manuel Pujadas, Katja Bigge, Flora Kluge, Anja Schwarz, Nikos Daskalakis, David Walter, Andreas Zahn, Ulrich Pöschl, Harald Bönisch, Stephan Borrmann, Ulrich Platt, and John P. Burrows
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 5877–5924, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-5877-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-5877-2022, 2022
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EMeRGe provides a unique set of in situ and remote sensing airborne measurements of trace gases and aerosol particles along selected flight routes in the lower troposphere over Europe. The interpretation uses also complementary collocated ground-based and satellite measurements. The collected data help to improve the current understanding of the complex spatial distribution of trace gases and aerosol particles resulting from mixing, transport, and transformation of pollution plumes over Europe.
Francisco J. Pérez-Invernón, Heidi Huntrieser, Patrick Jöckel, and Francisco J. Gordillo-Vázquez
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 1545–1565, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-1545-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-1545-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
This study reports the first parameterization of long-continuing-current lightning in a climate model. Long-continuing-current lightning is proposed to be the main precursor of lightning-ignited wildfires and sprites, a type of transient luminous event taking place in the mesosphere. This parameterization can significantly contribute to improving the implementation of wildfires in climate models.
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Short summary
Lightning-ignited fires tend to occur in remote areas and can spread significantly before suppression. Long continuing current (LCC) lightning, preferably taking place in dry thunderstorms, is believed to be the main precursor of lightning-ignited fires. We analyze fire databases of lightning-ignited fires in the Mediterranean basin and report the shared meteorological conditions of fire- and LCC-lightning-producing thunderstorms. These results can be useful to improve fire forecasting methods.
Lightning-ignited fires tend to occur in remote areas and can spread significantly before...
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