Lightning strikes more than 100 million times per year in the tropics
Thursday, July 23, 2020 - 11:00
in Earth & Climate
Researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama have published dramatic maps showing the locations of lightning strikes across the tropics in Global Change Biology. Based on ground and satellite data, they estimate that more than 100 million lighting strikes on land each year will radically alter forests and other ecosystems in the region between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn.