{"id":358099,"date":"2026-02-26T23:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T23:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/358099\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T23:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T23:18:09","slug":"scientists-observe-electrical-discharges-on-trees-under-thunderstorms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/358099\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Observe Electrical Discharges on Trees under Thunderstorms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most people know about lightning and the havoc it wreaks on forests. They do not know about the weak electrical glow, called a corona, that is thought to form on tree leaves under thunderstorms. Using an ultraviolet-sensitive instrument, Pennsylvania State University researchers have now directly observed and measured this electrical phenomenon on sweetgum, loblolly pine and other tree species under thunderstorms in several U.S. states.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Coronae<\/a><\/p>\n

Coronae glow on the tips of spruce needles, induced by charged metal plates in a laboratory. Image credit: William Brune.<\/p>\n

For as long as thunderstorms have rolled across the planet\u2019s forests, cloud-to-ground lightning has commanded attention: splitting trunks, igniting wildfires and briefly turning night into day.<\/p>\n

But scientists are now focusing on a far subtler electrical phenomenon that forms on the tips of leaves during thunderstorms.<\/p>\n

Unlike lightning, which superheats the air to tens of thousands of degrees, coronae are weak electrical discharges, with temperatures only slightly above the surrounding air.<\/p>\n

Yet these understated sparks produce extreme amounts of hydroxyl, the atmosphere\u2019s main oxidizer, damage tree leaves, and potentially contribute charged particles to the thunderstorm cloud base.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese things actually happen; we\u2019ve seen them; we know they exist now,\u201d said Dr. Patrick McFarland, a meteorologist at the Pennsylvania State University.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo finally have concrete evidence of that\u2026is what I think is the most fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the laboratory, if you turn off all the lights, close the door and block the windows, you can just barely see the coronae. They look like a blue glow,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

For their research, Dr. McFarland and his colleagues developed a multi-component mobile instrument capable of measuring coronae on treetops and atmospheric properties that can influence their formation.<\/p>\n

The main component was a 25-cm diameter telescope that focuses the UV radiation onto a solar-blind UV camera sensitive to wavelengths between 255 and 273 nm.<\/p>\n

The scientists were able to observe coronae on sweetgum and pine trees during a thunderstorm in North Carolina.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoronae hopped among leaves and sometimes followed a branch as it swayed in the wind,\u201d they noted.<\/p>\n

The authors made similar observations on other tree species under four other thunderstorms from Florida to Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur observations indicate that corona shimmer on the swath of trees beneath a thunderstorm,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese coronae can alter air quality in forests, subtly damage leaves, and possibly give charge to overhead thunderstorms.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study<\/a> was published online February 12 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

P.J. McFarland et al. 2026. Corona Discharges Glow on Trees under Thunderstorms. Geophysical Research Letters 53 (4): e2025GL119591; doi: 10.1029\/2025GL119591<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most people know about lightning and the havoc it wreaks on forests. They do not know about the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[77],"tags":[681,60508,18,167337,2129,19,17,167338,3280,6310,167339,133,167340,112215,14529,384,13383],"class_list":["post-358099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-corona","tag-discharge","tag-eire","tag-electrostatic-discharge","tag-florida","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-loblolly-pine","tag-north-carolina","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pine","tag-science","tag-sweetgum","tag-thunderstorm","tag-tree","tag-united-states","tag-uv"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116139491564989483","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}