No Statistic Evidence of Lightning on Venus

No statistical evidence of lightning in Venus night-side atmosphere from VIRTIS-Venus Express Visible observations

Authors:

Cardesín Moinelo et al

Abstract:

In this study we describe a dedicated analysis of luminous transient events on Venus night side atmosphere with the visible channel of the VIRTIS instrument (280–1100 nm), this being the most comprehensive search of lightning conducted so far with Venus Express data. Our search results in thousands of signal detections, but unfortunately they can be all explained by cosmic rays impinging on the detector, and further statistical analysis shows that all of the events are randomly distributed along the spectral dimension, therefore not showing any clear evidence of signal coming from lightning emission in the Venus atmosphere. This does not exclude the existence of lightning, but imposes some constraints on their occurrence that are important for future research.

Global Warming to Cause up to 50% More Lightning

Projected increase in lightning strikes in the United States due to global warming

Authors:

Romps et al

Abstract:

Lightning plays an important role in atmospheric chemistry and in the initiation of wildfires, but the impact of global warming on lightning rates is poorly constrained. Here we propose that the lightning flash rate is proportional to the convective available potential energy (CAPE) times the precipitation rate. Using observations, the product of CAPE and precipitation explains 77% of the variance in the time series of total cloud-to-ground lightning flashes over the contiguous United States (CONUS). Storms convert CAPE times precipitated water mass to discharged lightning energy with an efficiency of 1%. When this proxy is applied to 11 climate models, CONUS lightning strikes are predicted to increase 12 ± 5% per degree Celsius of global warming and about 50% over this century.