I 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!
I 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 :)
A 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).
>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.
> 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.
I 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.
AIUI 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.
There'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.
Average power output from lightning is terrible, but the spikes are pretty amazing.
I think there is only one spot in the planet that gets enough regular lightning to maybe be worth something (a random place in Venezuela, oddly), otherwise it isn’t worth the Capital.
Now 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.
Not 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.
Interestingly, chemistry is an electrical reaction (electron interactions). So it might be more accurate to say both are mediated through the same underlying force - electromagnetism.
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Not sure if the crazy lightning was because of sulfur, but I still remember it!
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.
I expect it's related to how lightning is triggered, not changes in atmospheric charge due to conductivity.
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.
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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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper-atmospheric_lightning
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I think there is only one spot in the planet that gets enough regular lightning to maybe be worth something (a random place in Venezuela, oddly), otherwise it isn’t worth the Capital.
Wait, that explains why volcanoes always have a cloud full of lightnings too, when they erupt.
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Sadly misunderstood by a bunch of people.
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