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Ultraviolet corona discharges on treetops during storms
- imzadi 6mo agoI've seen these images before, or some very similar images. So this is based on old photos or it has indeed been done before.
- dylan604 6mo agoA lot of the PopSci sites rotate articles so that one will publish something followed by another some time later. Also: "made their way down the nation’s eastern coast in June 2024", so it's possible the PopSci articles were based on early releases about this study and this is the actual study being finalized and released officially????
- colanderman 6mo agoThe images in the article are not from the paper. The paper contains no images of corona.
- mlhpdx 6mo agoHaving lived in the PNW all my life, and worked closely with our friend Doug (the fir trees), this article brings up old mental images of otherwise healthy needles with browned (dead) tips in the crowns. Coincidence? Probably. Very cool phenomenon to catch visually.
- colanderman 6mo ago[flagged]
- arrowleaf 6mo agoHuman eyes can be sensitive down to 380nm, the UV range goes up to 400nm. Birds and insects can see this. We can see this, using UV filters such as shown in the article. I get that it's fun to be a pedant sometimes, but come on.
- colanderman 6mo agoI did not state that humans cannot see corona. Nor is the paper is about humans seeing corona. It is about detecting UV photons using specialized equipment.
- t-3 6mo agoMaybe not a coincidence! The previous research linked in the article mentions this in lab testing: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022JD036761 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022JD03... > Visually, the corona discharges generated on the leaves were either small purple-blue point discharges or elongated purple-blue discharges, and usually formed on the tips of the leaf closest to the source of the electric field (Figure 1). Sometimes the corona discharges were steady and constant, but other times they would dim and brighten in an unsteady pulse. When the corona was turned off, the tips of the leaf where the discharges occurred were often burned and browned, even for the weakest electric fields applied to the leaves.
- colanderman 6mo agoThere is in fact no photograph of treetops glowing. There is a digital UV-wavelength video of the corona, and a visible-wavelength video of the trees. The paper [1] contains a sole picture with tiny circles indicating where the UV-video detected corona events, overlaid over a frame of the visible-wavelength video. The paper does also contain a video [2] which overlays a somewhat processed version of the UV video over the visible wavelength video, where UV photon events are indicated by decaying red dots. [1] https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025GL119591 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025GL11... [2] https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/downloadSupplement?doi=10.1029%2F2025GL119591&file=2025GL119591-sup-0002-Movie+SI-S01.avi https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/downloadSuppl...
- aaron695 6mo ago[dead]
- addaon 6mo agoSorry, in what way is this not a photograph? Are you saying that a video is not a sequence of photographs, that UV photons captured by a sensor don’t count because human retina sensitivity is low in that range, or some hopefully-less-semantic argument?
- adammarples 6mo agoMaybe they take issue with the word "glowing", which doesn't usually refer to invisible electromagnetic radiation
- Brian_K_White 6mo agoI was going to say the same. It's true that the image isn't fiction or a purely fabricated "artists rendering" from data. But it's also true that "filmed" and "glowing" are unusual ways to refer to what happened. You don't usually say filmed when talking about recording uv or microwaves etc. You technically could, and probably back when film was actually how uv was recorded a few people working in the field probably did, but almost no one else does, or no one at all since decades, which means the author of the title is the one out of step, not the people reading it. They actually recorded something, and this title is misleading. Both things are true.
- Lalabadie 6mo agoGreat time to read about St Elmo's Fire! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Elmo's_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Elmo's_fire
- _joel 6mo agoSounds like a man in motion :)
- wildylion 6mo agoStorm troopers, but not the kind you'd expect.
- calibas 6mo agoI notice the article, the paper, and the "plain language" summary of the paper don't mention the common term for this phenomenon, St Elmo's fire.
- dreamlayers 6mo agoWhat is new here? I thought corona discharges during storms had already been well known for a long time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Elmo%27s_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Elmo%27s_fire
- none2585 6mo agoArticle claims it had never been seen outside the lab before (for trees specifically I guess)
- ortusdux 6mo agoIt would be amazing if there was an electrical mechanism behind crown shyness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_shyness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_shyness
- GolfPopper 6mo agoReading the article about the unknowns here, how the electrical field interacts with the trees, and what role the produced hydroxyl plays in the atmosphere, makes me think about how daunting the idea of building a sustainable, human-friendly ecosystem off-Earth is.
- brador 6mo agoWill head hair on humans do this too?
- antimora 6mo ago> “This just goes to show that there’s still discovery science being done,” said McFarland, lead author on the paper. “For more than half a century, scientists have theorized that corona exists, but this proves it.” "proves it" ?? What kind of science is that?
- chankstein38 6mo agoI once was about 30-50ft from where lightning struck, standing on my porch looking towards my neighbors' house. I didn't see the actual strike happen but I did feel my hair stand on end and then see basically this coming off of the leaves reaching up towards the sky. Little purple tentacles all reaching upwards. But then I got to the point in the article where they seemed to explain this wasn't visible to the naked eye.... What did I see?
- stronglikedan 6mo ago> I did feel my hair stand on end I've experienced this when a strike hit power lines above my head. I didn't see the actual strike either - my friend a the other end of the driveway said it was right above me, but that sounds a little hyperbolic to me despite the ringing in my ears. I think we'd both be dead if it were that close. Either way, it gave me a lifelong respect for lightning.
- BizarroLand 6mo agoI've been indirectly hit by lightning, it struck my mom's house while I was running inside from the rain and at least part of it went through the wet iron handrail I was holding and hit me too. I was super lucky as so much of it had bled off that it felt more like a slap that left me all tingly for hours.
- chankstein38 6mo agoSame here! I still love watching it but that moment sent me inside and has definitely made me realize it's better to get inside in some instances!
- ihsw 6mo agoThis article describes ("corona discharge") what is the prelude to what you are describing ("upward streamer".)
- fooqux 6mo agoThe article said "nearly invisible to the naked eye" (emphasis mine). Between that and the fact the researchers weren't that close to an actual lightning strike (meaning you presumably would have seen a stronger effect), I would believe you saw something.
- 867-5309 6mo ago> They chose the Sunshine State because of its propensity to produce frequent thunderstorms made me giggle
- culi 6mo agoFun fact. Lightning strikes stimulate fungi to produce more mushrooms. Some shiitake and nameko cultivators in Japan have started using electrical shockwaves and gotten dramatically improved yields (sometimes over 200%). Interestingly enough the idea came from Japanese folklore rather than this science It's possible that this is an evolved response. Lightning hitting a tree will turn it into bark which is an excellent medium for white rot fungi. Lots of mushrooms might maximize the chance to get your spores there. Alternatively, it might mean you're dying soon and should seed out while you can. We think of lightning strikes as rare events but when it comes to late-successional trees, they are actually one of the main disturbances. Some trees like Dipteryx oleifera have shown fascinating adaptations to lightning strikes. This tree is highly resistant to its negative effects and promotes the growth of many lianas (woody vines) that make it so when the tree is struck, so are many of its neighbors. After being struck it shows dramatically increased growth to outgrow its now-damaged neighbors
- andai 6mo agoOzone: the fast life history signal for the mycelial mind!
- dlcarrier 6mo agoThe lines about oxidizers cleaning the air reminds me of the aspects of late 1800's and early 1900's product marketing oversimplifying hygiene. Bleach everything, whether it needs it or not; anything that indiscriminately kills all bacteria can only make the world a better place!
- Melatonic 6mo agoTo be fair with the lack of refrigeration and general spread of disease and vermin this could have been a great idea at the time
- subw00f 6mo agoReminds me of Hyperion Tesla trees.
- JumpCrisscross 6mo agoIs there a hypothesised purpose? Do discharges from plants that evolved in biomes with frequent lightning strikes differ from those that evolved without them?