An international team of scientists has shown that global warming could lead to more intense thunderstorms in the coming years, fueling wildfires around the world. This is reported in an article published in the journal Nature Communications.
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The researchers analyzed satellite images of wildfires that occurred between 1992 and 2018. It turned out that natural disasters arose due to the so-called “hot” lightning strikes, which are characterized by a longer duration than the average. Such lightning was the cause of about 90 percent of forest fires. The duration of the impacts ranged from 40 milliseconds to almost a third of a second, as a result of which more heat was transferred to grass, shrubs and trees, enough to ignite.
Simulations have shown a higher frequency of “hot” lightning strikes as the atmosphere warms up. The number of such strikes worldwide could increase from three per second to four per second. The scientists note that the models also showed an increase in all types of lightning strikes by 2090, representing a 28 percent increase.
The most vulnerable are the regions in South America, Southeast Asia, Australia, Africa, and also in North America. In the polar regions, the number of forest fires is likely to decrease due to increased rainfall.
