Detection of trends in the lightning activity in Brazil related to climatic changes

Abstract

The general goal of the project is investigate trends in the lightning occurrence and characteristics in Brazil that can be related to the climatic changes due to global warming. The investigation will be focused not only in mean values but also in the frequency of extreme values of the lightning characteristics. The analysis will include large urban areas where large changes in the environment have been observed. The impact of the climatic changes on the lightning is one of the key issues in atmospheric electricity. Following the last IPCC report in 2007, at present there is insufficient evidence to determine whether trends exist in such events. Three data sets will be used in the study: lightning data from the Brazilian Lightning Detection Network (BrasilDat) since 1999; lightning data from the Lightning Imaging Sensor (US) since 1998; and thunderstorm day data. The project has also the goal to improve the performance and characteristics of the BrasilDat in the state of São Paulo with the installation of the new (LS7000) type of lightning sensors and the validation of these new network configuration using high-speed cameras. The project will be coordinated by the Atmospheric Electricity Group (ELAT), in collaboration with the University of Arizona, NOAA and MIT, ali in United States. The results of the project will contribute to understand the causes and trends in the local and regional climatic changes, given support to political decisions in order to mitigate future social problems. They also will collaborate to the research that will be developed in the recent FAPESP program related to global climatic changes. (AU)