"Lightning Will Strike More Often as Climate Warms, Study Says"

"Lightning strikes in the United States will likely increase by nearly 50 percent by the end of the century as the world gets warmer and wetter, a new study says.

While those conditions were already known to promote thunderstorms in general, the new work focused on lightning strikes themselves.

Researchers calculated just how much lightning flashes increase as air warms, clouds fill with more energy from water vapor and rainfall intensifies."
 
Seth Borenstein reports for the Associated Press November 13, 2014.

SEE ALSO:

"Bolt From the Blue: Warming Climate May Fuel More Lightning" (Reuters)