Atmosphere (Feb 2024)

Thunderstorms near the North Pole

  • Alena Popykina,
  • Nikolay Ilin,
  • Maria Shatalina,
  • Colin Price,
  • Fedor Sarafanov,
  • Andrey Terentev,
  • Andrey Kurkin

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos15030310
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 15, no. 3
p. 310

Abstract

Read online

In recent years, there has been a notable surge in lightning events within the Arctic region. This is possibly due to the ongoing trend of global warming that is particularly pronounced in the Arctic. This study focuses on instances of rare lightning activity in the proximity to the North Pole in the last decade. We hypothesize that these occurrences are linked to augmented land heating in Eurasia rather than solely due to the increasing temperatures in the Arctic region. This assertion is substantiated by model simulations using the Weather Research and Forecasting model.

Keywords