Transport and production of NOX in electrified thunderstorms: Survey of previous studies and new observations at midlatitudes

Abstract

First airborne NOx (NO+NO2) measurements in anvils of active thunderstorms in Europe were performed in summer 1996 over southern Germany and Switzerland (47°‐49°N). This field experiment LINOX (lightning‐produced NOx) was designed to study the production of NOx by lightning discharges and the transport in convective storms. With the research aircraft Falcon of the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft‐ und Raumfahrt, about 20 anvil penetrations were performed including measurements of NO, NO2, CO2, O3, and meteorological parameters. In thunderstorm anvils, mean NOx mixing ratios between 0.8 and 2.2 ppbv were measured with peak values reaching up to 4 ppbv. A considerable part of these enhancements could be attributed to the transport of polluted air from the planetary boundary layer (PBL) using CO2 as tracer for PBL air. NOx produced by lightning can be obtained by subtracting the fraction of NOx transported from the PBL from total NOx measured in the anvil. The NOx/CO2 correlation in larger cumulus clouds without lightning was used as reference for the transport of PBL air in the anvils. In smaller LINOX thunderstorms the contribution from lightning, respectively, PBL transport to anvil NOx, was about equal. However, in medium and large LINOX thunderstorms the contribution from lightning dominated (60–75%). For these kind of thunderstorms it was estimated that ∼1.0±0.5 ppbv NOx resulted from lightning production. The observations were used to quantify the NOx production per thunderstorm and to give a rough estimate of the annual production of NOx. For the global lightning nitrogen budget the uncertainties were considerable (0.3–22 Tg(N) yr−1). The mean value for the global NOx production rate by lightning in the upper troposphere was estimated to 4 Tg(N) yr−1.