Can you believe it! Thunder can be a major source of chemicals to clean the air

Lightning and the electrical activity that is generated in the clouds, however weak it may be, clean the atmosphere, and when the sky lights up, some molecules are released that are capable of breaking down greenhouse gases, such as methane , ozone or nitrogen oxide, managing to restore the atmospheric balance.

When lightning discharges all its energy, significant amounts of hydroxyl (OH) and hydroperoxyl (HO2) radicals are produced, which remain confined within the clouds, oxidizing the atmosphere and cleaning the environment that humans have polluted for decades.

In 2012, a group of researchers wanted to know the chemical changes that occurred in the atmosphere during electrical storms and, therefore, they decided to move through the sky during one of those storms. The plane traveled from Colorado to Oklahoma, actually a short trip, just 1,126 kilometers, and during the journey the researchers made certain measurements whose results do not correspond to anything they had previously observed.

By then it was already known that electrical discharges are capable of changing the chemical state of the water (H2O) contained in the clouds, separating into these molecules. Believing the data made no sense, they assumed the instrument was generating noise, so they removed those signals and continued the original study without them.

Until years later, together with a student, they began to work on a hypothesis that did not seem so far-fetched. The results show that they were finally correct, it is not necessary for lightning to be generated for this chemical reaction to take place, not even for visible light to be produced. Most lightning never ends up hitting the ground, and it’s important when it doesn’t and is confined to clouds, since that’s when it cleans up the surrounding ozone (O3), one of the greenhouse gases, the most.

Amazing, right!