Hobbies And Interests
Nitrogen Fixation
Lightning plays a minor role in the nitrogen cycle, one of the great ecological networks that facilitates life on the planet. While nitrogen gas is the most abundant in the atmosphere, most organisms can't use it for essential growth and function until the gas is transformed into nitrogen compounds called nitrates. Lightning converts, or "fixes," a small amount of nitrogen in the atmosphere into nitrates, as Tom L. McKnight notes in "Physical Geography: A Landscape Appreciation" (1999), but most of the important fixation comes from biological processes of organisms like certain bacteria and fungi.
Atmospheric Development
The evolution of life on Earth may have involved the influence of lightning. Some theories suggest it may have sparked the production of atmospheric oxygen by driving, with its elevation of heat and temperature in the vicinity of its path, chemical reactions of water vapor and carbon dioxide generated by volcanic eruptions. If so, lightning may have contributed to the development of photosynthetic processes.
Wildfire
Lightning is one of the major causes of wildfires on earth, and thus wields a huge ecological influence. Many parts of the world, not only semi-arid woodlands and shrublands, are prone to occasional fires. In such communities, fires are critical mechanisms of ecological disturbance, influencing the course of ecosystem succession, which refers to the cycling-through of plant communities. A big wildfire heats the lower atmosphere and causes air masses to rise. This process can provoke more lighting, enhancing the original blaze.
Injury and Death
Trees, the tallest objects in many landscapes, often bear the brunt of lightning strikes. While the initial bolt may not kill the tree, a standing, injured one is more vulnerable to infestation by insects and other pests that may prove lethal. People who don't seek shelter during a thunderstorm and are caught in the open are vulnerable to lightning, as well as animals. Lightning is a premiere cause of death for free-roaming cattle in rangeland, where livestock are situated on treeless steppe, grassland or semi-desert.
Sprites and Jets
Powerful cloud-to-ground or intracloud lightning strikes may initiate dramatic and mysterious phenomena in the high atmosphere. Meteorologists now recognize the existence of short-lived blasts of color above the cumulonimbus of big thunderstorms. These include the red optical eruptions called "sprites," caused by the energy pulses of positive cloud-to-ground bolts, and blueish cones known as "blue jets" that shoot from the summit of a thundercloud.