References & Sources  -  October 3, 1998

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Where there’s smoke, there are sprites

Smoke from massive forest fires in Mexico this spring altered the polarity of lightning thousands of miles away over the central United States.

 

References:

Lyons, W.A., et al. 1998. Enhanced positive cloud-to-ground lightning in thunderstorms ingesting smoke from fires. Science 282(Oct. 2):77.

 

Further Readings:

Information on the Mexican fires is available at NASA's Web site at http://modarch.gsfc.nasa.gov/fire_atlas/fires.html.

 

Sources:

Don J. Latham
U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service
Intermountain Fire Sciences Laboratory
P.O. Box 8089
Missoula, MT 59807

Walter A. Lyons
FMA Research, Inc.
Yucca Ridge Field Station
Fort Collins, CO 80524

Charles B. Moore
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology
P.O. Box 1333
Socorro, NM 87801-1333

From Science News, Vol. 154, No. 14, October 3, 1998, p. 212.
Copyright Ó 1998 by Science Service.

 

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