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Lightning declines over shipping lanes following regulation of sulfur emissions
Research paper: https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/25/2937/2025/ https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/25/2937/2025/
- fuzzfactor 1y agoI would imagine that a column of soot-containing air is more conductive if it contains oxides of sulfur than if it does not. The same electrical potential may still be present in the clouds, but instead of being neutralized dramatically it could now be dissipating slowly rather than gone in a flash :) More study would be good to have.
- schiffern 1y agoThe proposed mechanism would cause more lightning, not less. I expect it's related to how lightning is triggered, not changes in atmospheric charge due to conductivity.
- CheeseFromLidl 1y agoMaybe there’s a parasitic bipolar transistor in the atmosphere, with sulphur acting as a doping that reduced the threshold for latchup.
- schiffern 1y agoMaybe so, but honestly that seems just as contrived. Surely we should be looking for the atmospheric science nerds to be chiming in here, not the computer engineering or EE nerds? Problem is, atmospheric science isn't exactly considered "high status" vs the other two.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- hopelite 1y ago> The same electrical potential may still be present in the clouds, but instead of being neutralized dramatically it could now be dissipating slowly rather than gone in a flash That was my initial thought, like a “phantom power” drain, the process by which electrons knock each other is able to happen in a broad manner, not concentrated in the poles and suddenly discharging among a single path, i.e., lightning. It seems similar to how static electricity builds up easier in dry environments because in humid ones the electrons can more easily equalize across water molecules.
- scythe 1y ago>The same electrical potential may still be present in the clouds I wouldn't jump to this lemma so quickly. The paper mentions the density of aerosols. Sulfur oxides promote condensation by forming low-volatility compounds like H2SO3 and H2SO4. An increase in the number density of droplets could mean more triboelectric charge transfer between the droplets and the air. That would increase the amount of electric energy in the clouds. This is also the mechanism by which sulfur has been proposed for geoengineering, but I think the variant that replaces sulfur with terpenes sounds safer.
- lazide 1y agoYeah, nothing could go wrong with actively engineering more acid rain.
- xattt 1y agoA little tangential, but I wonder if the decrease in ball lightning sightings is related to a decrease in particulate matter in the atmosphere as a result of less open-flame burning (hearths and whatnot).
- potato3732842 1y agoVery interesting, but this article is kind of a mess and all over the place. I would expect a shipping lane to have more or less than baseline amounts of lightening regardless of soot on the basis of it being generally more churned up and therefore having slightly different potential than the rest of the ground (which just happens to be liquid water in this case). It's not clear to me if the study is isolating the variable they're measuring properly. Surely there's a "control" shipping lane somewhere that was cleaner to begin with or never cleaned up. Additionally, it's well known that having a bunch of crap (including water) suspended in the air to bridge the gaps makes it easier for electricity to arc so it's not clear if and/or to what extent this the change a result of sulfer emissions or particulate generally. It's also well known that particulate facilitates condensation (the article talks about this).
- lesuorac 1y ago> Surely there's a "control" shipping lane somewhere that was cleaner to begin with or never cleaned up. Isn't the shipping lane the "treatment" group and everywhere else in the world the "control" group? Like we administered x mg of sulfer to the patient and they saw y outcome while patients not receiving sufler saw z outcome. When we stopped administering sulfer all patients saw z outcome seems to be isolating sulfer as causing y.
- jjk166 1y ago> Like we administered x mg of sulfer to the patient and they saw y outcome while patients not receiving sufler saw z outcome. When we stopped administering sulfer all patients saw z outcome seems to be isolating sulfer as causing y. There is a reason we use placebos for control groups.
- lesuorac 1y agoUh, there's no requirement to use placebos or a control group. For example, covid just uses a treatment group and considers the rest of the world as control. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9124157/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9124157/
- sMarsIntruder 1y agoNot just lightning apparently. SO2 masked for decades the global warming, and here we are.
- ccgreg 1y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming Sadly misunderstood by a bunch of people.
- ACCount37 1y ago[flagged]
- sMarsIntruder 1y agoThese guys are doing well https://makesunsets.com/ https://makesunsets.com/
- titzer 1y agoRight. Like one thing that cancer needs is oxygen. So if we stop breathing (instead of laboriously stopping smoking--that's hard), then we can slow down cancer.
- toxik 1y agoI sense you were trying to make a different point than what you made. Cancer _is_ treated in that way, that is basically how chemo works.
- titzer 1y agoWhoosh. No, chemotherapy is not the same as holding your breath, and no, most cancer drugs don't have anything to do with oxygen, except the (unwanted) side effect that they can lower red blood cell count, causing anemia and low oxygen levels.
- Fricken 1y agoThe whole developed world is self-sabotaging. Environmentalists are just the messengers.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- teeray 1y agoIt feels like there’s something mythological about less brimstone attracting less ire from the gods
- brookst 1y agoPerhaps they should put altars to Zeus on the ships.
- generic92034 1y agoAnd then Poseidon is envious and takes you down with giant whirlpools or sea monsters! ;)
- brookst 1y agoGood point. I guess that’s why they didn’t already have Zeus altars.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- chiefalchemist 1y agoLightning is a chemical reaction? Fascinating.
- daneel_w 1y agoNot quite. The emissions act as an electrically conductive medium. In a roundabout way it's similar to how pure and deionized water is an insulator, but tap water is conductive because of various impurities.
- chiefalchemist 1y agoWell, a chemical is introduced and there’s a reaction. We can nitpick about the details but that’s the crux of it,
- daneel_w 1y agoImagine coughing up those blasé closing words to a topic of physics that scientists are trying to unravel. "Well, we can nitpick about the details, but that's the crux of it."
- chiefalchemist 1y agoImagine not being able to look at things abstractly; to use a different lens. And instead being lazy and taking everything simply at face value, as is, as it’s spoon fed to you. The correct reply was: “Yes. Via that lens it makes me wonder if there are not other similar catalysts that we’ve been missing.” Sorry mate. Small ideas from small minds don’t excite me. Have a nice day.
- lazide 1y agoInterestingly, chemistry is an electrical reaction (electron interactions). So it might be more accurate to say both are mediated through the same underlying force - electromagnetism.
- metalman 1y agoNow that the US is eliminating satelite based monitering of emmisions there is no way to do a definitive study on S0² concentrations over shipping lanes, and the earlier tentative conclusions will have to be disregarded. The very far fetched conjecture that adding S0² emmisions into the stratosphere without actualy increasing C0² and water vapor related and overall heat gain, is maddness.
- siliconc0w 1y agoI wonder if this has implications for geo-engineering projects that want to inject sulfur into the atmosphere. More lightning seems like a problematic side effect.
- Projectiboga 1y agoDoesn't lightning help make ozone? And lightining does help make hydroxyl ions, which help convert airisol methane.
- mrec 1y agoAIUI those plans typically involve injecting e.g. sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere specifically, not the atmosphere as a whole. Lightning can sometimes occur that high, but it's definitely not the norm.
- fragmede 1y ago[flagged]
- ambicapter 1y agoThere's all kinds of weather events in the upper atmosphere, including lightning-like. They're mostly understudied from difficulty in studying them, not because they don't exist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper-atmospheric_lightning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper-atmospheric_lightning
- eastbound 1y agoCould also help make lightning rods more efficient. Make them spout sulfur. Wait, that explains why volcanoes always have a cloud full of lightnings too, when they erupt.
- foota 1y agoOkay, I think you're being facetious, but just in case, my understanding is that the lightning from eruptions is a form of static electricity.
- kylecazar 1y agoI do have one experience with Singaporean lightning, pre the 2020 regulation! I was on a ship that was anchored overnight for fueling right outside of the port of Singapore, and saw an otherworldly scene. I was on the smoke-deck in a storm, late at night. There was lightning every 5 seconds, the port in the distance, horizontal rain, dozens of huge cargo ships around, and some gigantic flames coming from land that looked like Mordor (a refinery or plant of some sort?). Not sure if the crazy lightning was because of sulfur, but I still remember it!
- whycome 1y agoSmoke-deck?
- rapjr9 1y agoSo could this be used in reverse to map SO2 emissions by looking at frequency of lightning strikes across the world? Lightning data is already available from satellites. Looking at various lightning maps the strongest correlation is with storms, but perhaps some statistical magic could extract other signals?