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. 2020 Dec:211:105463.
doi: 10.1016/j.jastp.2020.105463. Epub 2020 Oct 7.

Lightning during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil

Osmar Pinto Neto  1 , Iara R C A Pinto  2 , Osmar Pinto Jr  2
Affiliations

Lightning during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil

Osmar Pinto Neto et al. J Atmos Sol Terr Phys. 2020 Dec.

Abstract

This study is concerned with the effects of a decrease in the air pollution concentration on the lightning characteristics of two large Brazilian cities. The decrease in air pollution happened from March 20, till April 02, 2020, and it was caused by the social distancing effort to contain the COVID-19 spread in the cities. In São Paulo, the ratio between cloud-to-ground to intracloud flashes and the average peak current of negative cloud-to-ground flashes significantly decreased; whereas in Belo Horizonte, the ratio between positive and negative cloud-to-ground flashes significantly increased with respect to the values in previous years.

Keywords: Air pollution; Brazil; COVID-19; Lightning.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Social distancing in percentage giving by Apple Driving (Apple Mobility Trends Reports, 2020, available from: https://www.apple.com/covid19/mobility) in the cities of São Paulo and Belo Horizonte, during the period from March 10 to April 09, 2020. Also shown in the figure are the values in São Paulo given by the São Paulo government (Available from: https://www.saopaulo.sp.gov.br/coronavirus/isolamento#gsc.tab=0). Data were low-pass filter filtered at 0.09 Hz (Butterworth 4th order), and changes from baseline were considered.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
GOES 16 satellite images indicating the meteorological conditions associated with most flashes recorded during the period from March 20 to April 02, 2020 in: (a) São Paulo at 20:00 UT on March 29 and (b) Belo Horizonte at 20:00 UT on March 21 (the images are available in http:www.cptec.inpe.br).
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Maps of the lightning flashes recorded by BrasilDAT Dataset in: (a) the city of São Paulo on March 29, 2020 and (b) the city of Belo Horizonte on March 21, 2020.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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