{"id":4067,"date":"2015-04-21T08:42:28","date_gmt":"2015-04-21T08:42:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revoscience.com\/en\/?p=4067"},"modified":"2015-04-21T08:44:21","modified_gmt":"2015-04-21T08:44:21","slug":"lightning-flashes-most-frequently-over-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/lightning-flashes-most-frequently-over-land\/","title":{"rendered":"Lightning Flashes most Frequently over land"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Global<\/a>
Global Lightning Activity NASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens using LIS\/OTD data from the Global Hydrology and Climate Center Lightning Team.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to satellite observations, lightning flashes more often over land than over the oceans. And lightning seems to happen more often closer to the equator.<\/span><\/p>\n

The NASA Earth Observatory\u2019s Global Lightening Activity Map shows the average yearly counts of lightning flashes per square kilometer from 1995 to 2013. Areas with the fewest number of flashes each year are gray and purple; areas with the largest number of lightning flashes \u2014 as many as 150 per year per square kilometer \u2014 are bright pink.<\/span><\/p>\n

The map is based on data collected from 1998 to 2013 by the Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) on NASA\u2019s\u00a0Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission<\/span><\/a>\u00a0satellite, and from 1995 to 2000 by the Optical Transient Detector (OTD) on the\u00a0OrbView-1\/Microlab<\/span><\/a>\u00a0satellite. Flashes above 38 degrees North were observed by OTD only, as the satellite flew to higher latitudes.<\/span><\/p>\n

The higher frequency of lighting over land makes sense because solid earth absorbs sunlight and heats up faster than water; this means there is stronger convection and greater atmospheric instability, leading to the formation of thunder and lightning producing storms.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to NASA\u2019s Daniel Cecil, a member of the Global Hydrology and Climate Center\u2019s\u00a0lightning team,<\/span><\/a>\u00a0the data also have revealed some interesting regional trends. For example, scientists have observed a large number of flashes during the month of May in the Brahmaputra Valley of far eastern India. The heating and weather patterns are unstable and changeable at that time \u2014 just before the onset of the monsoon, which brings plenty of rain but much less lightning. In contrast, locations in\u00a0Central Africa<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and Northwestern South America have large amounts of lightning throughout the entire year.<\/span><\/p>\n

As the map shows, the highest amounts of lightning flashes occur in the far eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and\u00a0Lake Maracaibo<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in northwestern Venezuela.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cecil noted that more years of data has not necessarily brought notable big-picture differences when compared to the\u00a0earlier maps<\/span><\/a>. \u201cThe longer record allows us to more confidently identify some of these finer details,\u201d he said. \u201cWe can examine seasonality, and variability through the day and year-to-year.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Source: scientificcomputing.com\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to satellite observations, lightning flashes more often over land than over the oceans. And lightning seems to happen more often closer to the equator. The NASA Earth Observatory\u2019s Global Lightening Activity Map shows the average yearly counts of lightning flashes per square kilometer from 1995 to 2013. Areas with the fewest number of flashes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":4068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-curiosity","category-environment"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/lightning_lis_otd_1995-2013.jpg",720,375,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/lightning_lis_otd_1995-2013-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/lightning_lis_otd_1995-2013-300x156.jpg",300,156,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/lightning_lis_otd_1995-2013.jpg",720,375,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/lightning_lis_otd_1995-2013.jpg",720,375,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/lightning_lis_otd_1995-2013.jpg",720,375,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/lightning_lis_otd_1995-2013.jpg",720,375,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/lightning_lis_otd_1995-2013.jpg",720,375,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/lightning_lis_otd_1995-2013.jpg",720,375,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/lightning_lis_otd_1995-2013.jpg",600,313,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/lightning_lis_otd_1995-2013.jpg",600,313,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/lightning_lis_otd_1995-2013.jpg",720,375,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/lightning_lis_otd_1995-2013.jpg",550,286,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/lightning_lis_otd_1995-2013.jpg",95,49,false],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/lightning_lis_otd_1995-2013.jpg",640,333,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/lightning_lis_otd_1995-2013.jpg",96,50,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/lightning_lis_otd_1995-2013.jpg",150,78,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Amrita Tuladhar"]},"category_info":"Curiosity<\/a> Environment<\/a>","tag_info":"Environment","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}