Open AccessLightning activity in the Mediterranean: quantification of cyclones contribution and relation to their intensity
Author(s) -
Galanaki Elissavet,
Flaounas Emmanouil,
Kotroni Vassiliki,
Lagouvardos Konstantinos,
Argiriou Athanassios
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
atmospheric science letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.951
H-Index - 45
ISSN - 1530-261X
DOI - 10.1002/asl.685
Subject(s) - lightning (connector) , cyclone (programming language) , environmental science , meteorology , climatology , mediterranean climate , mediterranean sea , convective available potential energy , cyclogenesis , intensity (physics) , atmospheric electricity , atmospheric sciences , convection , geology , geography , engineering , physics , power (physics) , archaeology , quantum mechanics , field programmable gate array , electric field , embedded system
A 10‐year data set of intense Mediterranean cyclones was used for a twofold objective: first to quantify the cyclone's contribution to lightning occurrence in the region and second to investigate potential connection of lightning with cyclones intensity. For this reason, we used cyclone tracks, lightning observations and reanalysis from the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts, for the 10‐year period of 2005–2014. Results showed that intense cyclones provoke <10% of lightning activity over the Mediterranean Sea, however, in certain areas, cyclone contributions might reach 20–30%. The intense cyclones, which are associated with lightning activity close to their centre, constitute about one third (36%) of the total number of tracked cyclones. Therefore two cyclone groups are identified: those associated with and those without lightning. The first group presents in average 35% more ice and 15% more liquid cloud water content within the upper and lower atmospheric levels, respectively, while is related to approximately three times greater values of convective available potential energy in average. Further analysis shows that the intensities of the cyclones in the two groups present no significant differences, suggesting that deep convection may not be a major mechanism for the occurrence of intense Mediterranean cyclones. Finally, we show that cyclones associated with lightning present the highest lightning activity about 6 h prior to the cyclones maximum intensity.