More lightning strikes on weekdays due to human activity
Articles — By forcechange on November 26, 2008 10:02 am
As George Carlin said, “The planet will be fine… it’s the people who are f**ked.” While this is surely true, that doesn’t stop the people from causing anthropogenic changes in the planet’s natural systems.
Beyond the obvious example of climate change, humans are also apparently responsible for an increase in storm activity during weekdays. NASA researcher Thomas Bell found that there is actually 10-20% more lighting strikes on Wednesdays and Thursdays than on the weekends. This effect is most pronounced in the southeastern US.
Bell’s research has shown that lighting strikes begin to rise on Monday and then peaks on Wed/Thurs. He has theorized that this spike is attributable to air pollution from heavy truck traffic during the middle of the week, which in effect, seeds the atmosphere and helps create thunderheads.
Bell’s previous research has also found that summer precipitation follows similar trends.
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