EGUsphere

1680-7375

Copernicus Publications

Göttingen, Germany

10.5194/egusphere-2023-301

Historical (1960–2014) lightning and LNOx trends and their controlling factors in a chemistry–climate model

Yanfeng

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5807-4270

¹ Sudo

Kengo

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5013-4168

¹ ²

Graduate School of Environment Studies, Nagoya University, Nagoya, 464-8601, Japan

Japan Agency for Marine–Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), Yokohama, 237-0061, Japan

03 04 2023

2023 1 34

2023

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2023/egusphere-2023-301/

The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2023/egusphere-2023-301/egusphere-2023-301.pdf

Lightning can cause natural disasters that engender human and animal injuries or fatalities, infrastructure destruction, and wildfire ignition. Lightning-produced NOx (LNOx), a major NOx (NOx = NO + NO2) source, plays a vital role in atmospheric chemistry and global climate. The Earth has experienced marked global warming and changes in aerosol and aerosol precursor emissions (AeroPEs) since the 1960s. Investigating long-term historical (1960–2014) lightning and LNOx trends can provide important indicators for all lightning-related phenomena and for LNOx effects on atmospheric chemistry and global climate. Understanding how global warming and changes in AeroPEs influence historical lightning–LNOx trends is also helpful because it can provide a scientific basis for assessing future lightning–LNOx trends. Moreover, global lightning activities’ responses to large volcanic eruptions (such as the 1991 Pinatubo eruption) are not well elucidated, and are worth exploring. This study used the widely used cloud top height lightning scheme (CTH scheme) and the newly developed ice-based ECMWF-McCAUL lightning scheme to investigate historical (1960–2014) lightning–LNOx trends and variations and their controlling factors (global warming, increases in AeroPEs, and Pinatubo eruption) in the framework of the CHASER (MIROC) chemistry–climate model. Results of sensitive experiments indicate that both lightning schemes simulated almost flat global mean lightning flash rate trends during 1960–2014 in CHASER. Moreover, both lightning schemes suggest that past global warming enhances historical trends of global mean lightning density and global LNOx emissions in a positive direction (around 0.03 % yr−1 or 3 % K−1). However, past increases in AeroPEs exert an opposite effect to the lightning–LNOx trends (−0.07 % yr−1 – −0.04 % yr−1 for lightning and −0.08 % yr–1 – −0.03 % yr–1 for LNOx). Additionally, effects of past global warming and increases in AeroPEs on lightning trends were found to be heterogeneous across different regions when analyzing lightning trends on the global map. Lastly, this study is the first to suggest that global lightning activities were suppressed markedly during the first year after the Pinatubo eruption shown in both lightning schemes (global lightning activities decreased by as much as 17.02 % simulated by the ECMWF-McCAUL scheme). Based on the simulated suppressed lightning activities after the Pinatubo eruption, our study also indicates that global LNOx emissions decreased after the Pinatubo eruption (2.41 % – 8.72 % for the annual percentage reduction), which lasted 2–3 years. Model intercomparisons of lightning flash rate trends and variations between our study (CHASER) and other Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) models indicate significant uncertainties in historical (1960–2014) global lightning trend simulations. Such uncertainties must be investigated further.

Ministry of the Environment, Government of Japan

S-12

S–20

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

JP20H04320

JP19H05669

JP23H04971

JP19H04235

Japan Science and Technology Agency

JPMJSP2125