Thunderstorms and climate change

Scientists suspect there is a link between large thunderstorms in the Great Plains of southern United States and climate change.

Thunderstorms and climate change

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• The story: Scientists suspect there is a link between large thunderstorms in the Great Plains of southern United States and climate change. Scientists from Texas A&M University, who published some new findings in Nature Geosciences, claimed their findings could help predict storms and understand climatic variations.
• They analysed oxygen isotopes — some as old as 50,000 years — present in stalactites in Texas caves to understand the connection between past thunderstorms and their duration. Accordingly, the scientists claimed storms coincided with abrupt global climate shifts during the last glacial period even as they shifted from being organised weakly to strongly.

1. They found a similar pattern between recent thunderstorms in the US and climate change.
2. In recent years, thunderstorms in the Southern Great Plains of the US have intensified and increased in terms of frequency.
3. Understanding the trends and correlation may help in understanding past thunderstorms, their duration and climate variability. These can be used to predict future thunderstorms as well.

• Future predictions: Data also suggest that thunderstorms in the Southern Great Plains of the US are strongly related to changes in the large-scale wind and moisture patterns. These changes in the large-scale circulation can be used to assess future predictions.
• Knowledge centre: Thunderstorm are violent short-lived weather disturbances that are associated with lightning, thunder, dense clouds, heavy rain or hail, and strong gusty winds. Thunderstorms form when warm, moist air rises into cold air. The warm air becomes cooler, which causes moisture (water vapour) to form small water droplets - a process called condensation. If this happens with large amounts of air and moisture, a thunderstorm can form. Tornadoes are the most dangerous and damaging aspect of severe thunderstorms. Wind speeds of tornadoes can reach to near 480 kmph and cause an average of 80 deaths and 1,500 injuries per year in the U.S. Most fatalities from tornadoes occur in mobile homes and in automobiles.

 

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