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The "liquid water habitable zone" (HZ) concept is predicated on the ability of the silicate weathering feedback to stabilize climate across a wide range of instellations. However, representations of silicate weathering used in current…
During the afternoon of 15 June 2005, convective storms developed along and west of the dryline over eastern Colorado and New Mexico. One such storm tracked eastward into Cimarron County, Oklahoma and produced a strong downburst at Kenton.…
Upward lightning (UL) has become an increasingly important threat to wind turbines as ever more of them are being installed for renewably producing electricity. The taller the wind turbine the higher the risk that the type of lightning…
The strength of mid-latitude storm tracks shapes weather and climate phenomena in the extra-tropics, as these storm tracks control the daily to multi-decadal variability of precipitation, temperature and winds. By the end of this century,…
In contrast to the wet gets wetter and dry gets drier paradigm, here, using observations and climate model simulations, we show that the mean rainfall over the semi-arid northwest parts of India and Pakistan has increased by 10 to 50…
Recent research has community have shown that tropical convection and rainfall is sensitive to mid-tropospheric humidity. Therefore it has been suggested to improve the representation of moist convection by making cumulus parameterizations…
The influence of forest loss on rainfall remains poorly understood. Addressing this challenge Spracklen et al. recently presented a pan-tropical study of rainfall and land-cover that showed that satellite-derived rainfall measures were…
Terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs) are the most energetic photon phenomenon occurring naturally on Earth. An outstanding question is as follows: Are these flashes just a rare exotic phenomenon or are they an intrinsic part of lightning…
This study develops a novel framework within the Weather Research and Forecast Model for modeling aerosol-cloud-lightning interactions. The framework explicitly represents aerosol-cloud interactions by prescribing aerosols with two…
In this paper we discuss and address the challenges of predicting extreme atmospheric events like intense rainfall, hail, and strong winds. These events can cause significant damage and have become more frequent due to climate change.…
We study the role of galactic cosmic ray (GCR) variability in influencing the rainfall variability in Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall (ISMR) season. We find that on an average during 'drought' (low ISMR) periods in India, GCR flux is…
Mineral clouds in substellar atmospheres play a special role as a catalyst for a variety of charge processes. If clouds are charged, the surrounding environment becomes electrically activated, and ensembles of charged grains are…
A correlation between the secondary cosmic ray flux and the near-earth electric field intensity, measured during thunderstorms, has been found by analyzing the data of the ARGO-YBJ experiment, a full coverage air shower array located at the…
Based on experimental results of recent years, this article presents a qualitative description of a possible mechanism (termed the Mechanism) covering the main stages of lightning initiation, starting before and including the initiating…
Electric currents circulating between charged clouds and the earth surface during lightning discharges are responsible for considerable damages and casualties. It is therefore important to develop better protection methods in addition to…
Transient luminous events (TLEs) is the collective name given to mesospheric electrical breakdown phenomena occurring in conjunction with strong lightning discharges in tropospheric thunderstorms. They include elves, sprites, haloes and…
During thunderstorms, the atmospheric electric field can increase above hundreds of kV/m, causing an acceleration in the charged particles of secondary cosmic rays. Such an acceleration causes avalanche processes in the atmosphere,…
An analysis is made of the manner in which the cosmic ray intensity at Earth has varied over its existence and its possible relevance to both the origin and the evolution of life. Much of the analysis relates to the 'high energy' cosmic…
The Telescope Array (TA) of central Utah was designed to detect ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) and is the largest of its kind in the Northern hemisphere. Its capabilities, however, are not limited to extra-terrestrial sources.…
Floods have repeatedly battered the South Indian state, Kerala, as a result of the unprecedented heavy rainfall during Boreal Summers, in recent years. The state witnessed large departures from normal rainfall in 2018 and 2019. Previous…