Rare siege of Arctic lightning zaps ice north of Alaska

Rare siege of Arctic lightning zaps ice north of Alaska

Subject: Geography

Context: The National Weather Service in Fairbanks, Alaska, confirmed early Tuesday that a freak Arctic thunderstorm had occurred Monday evening, producing between 100 and 200 lightning strikes as an exceptional pulse of heat visited Alaska’s North Slope.

Concept:

• Thunderstorms in Alaska are a relatively common occurrence, flaring up annually over the remote wildness that makes up the North Slope. Some produce lightning strikes that ignite wildfires and require assistance flown in from other states.
• What made Monday’s storms so unusual, however, is just how far north the storms ventured — well north of Prudhoe Bay, directly over sea ice. The Weather Service in Fairbanks estimates that thunderstorms like that may develop so far north only once or twice every decade.
• Typically, the air over the Arctic Ocean, especially when the water is covered with ice, lacks the convective heat needed to generate lightning storms.
• But as climate change warms the Arctic faster than the rest of the world, that’s changing, scientists say.
• These electrical storms threaten boreal forests fringing the Arctic, as they spark fires in remote regions already baking under the round-the-clock summer sun.