Very 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).
fuzzfactor · 1h ago
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 :)
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).
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.