Estimation of anthropogenic impact on lightning activity over urbanized areas of Northeast Asia

Abstract

The anthropogenic influence on lightning activity is revealed by an increase in the density of lightning stroke in the places with accumulation of artificial products in air and by an additional period of one week in temporal variations. In this study, a comparative analysis of the density of lightning strokes within the city (with a resolution of 0.25 degrees along longitude-latitude) and the surrounding areas (up to 0.5 degrees around the city center cell). The observations were carried out using the World Wide Lightning network (WWLLN), one of the sensors of which was installed in Yakutsk in 2009. We selected cities within the territory of 60-180E, 40-80N. Selected cities in Siberia and Russian Far East have a population of more than 50 thousand – 57 cities. Due to the high population density in the North-Eastern China, we selected only large cities with a metropolitan population of more than 400 thousand people – 26 cities. The urban effect could be revealed in about 20% of cities. The 4-, 7-, 25-day period was found in variations of lightning number around cities.