Using seven summer-seasons (1997-2003, over 46,000 volumes) of NEXRAD data, coincident climatologies of summer-season ground flash densities and radar derived, column integrated, precipitation ice mass (IM) were developed, extending global studies of IM and lightning to more regional and cell scales around Houston, TX. Results indicate that local maximums in cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning were indeed accompanied by peaks in IM. Extending previous global findings to cell-scales, we establish a link ...
The research presented in this dissertation addresses a fundamental question regarding urban, ultimately anthropogenic, influences on convection as it relates to lightning production and precipitation structure. In general, inadvertent weather modification hypotheses offered to explain lightning and rainfall anomalies rely on either or both perturbations in the spatial distribution and intensity of convection (from whence warm-season rainfall and lightning emanate), or modification to convective cloud microphysics through aerosol loading over ...
Anthropogenic influences such as the Urban Heat Island (UHI) and increased aerosol concentrations have been postulated for many years to have an effect on lower tropospheric chemistry, convection, lightning and rainfall. Moreover, these influences have been invoked as possible explanations for the cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning anomalies observed over the Houston metropolitan area. In particular, Orville et al. (2001) and Steiger et al. (2002) reported a 45% increase in annual CG ...
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