Description:

Lightning is a major driver of the global wildfire, atmospheric composition, and geochemical cycles on seasonal and annual timescales. However, lightning also poses risks to infrastructure, aviation, and human life around the world. As a proxy for thunderstorm activity, lightning data can additionally help quantify the spatiotemporal occurrence and changes in thunderstorm environments and associated hazards ranging from flash flooding to wildfire ignition. This session invites submissions that use lightning data and simulations to understand, mitigate, and predict fire weather-related hazards associated with lightning. Topics include but are not limited to elucidating the physical drivers and climatology of lightning-initiated wildfire activity, and documenting and analyzing their associated changes over time to understand the characteristics of these hazards historically and in the future. This session will be a joint session with the First Conference on Fire Weather, Technology, and Risk.