Evaluating the Relationship Between Lightning and the Large‐Scale Environment and its Use for Lightning Prediction in Global Climate Models

The objective of this study is to determine the relationship between lightning observed by Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) and seven large-scale environmental variables obtained from 3-hourly Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research Application version 2 (MERRA-2) reanalysis in tropics subtropics. used are: convective available potential energy (CAPE), normalized CAPE (nCAPE), lifting condensation level (LCL), column saturation fraction (r), 700-hPa omega, low-level wind shear (LS) 900 700 hPa, deep (DS) 300 hPa. All show a significant shift toward larger values when present except shear. DS decreases present, while LS shows little mean change. However, strong geographical differences exist occurrence, particularly land ocean Using logistic regression, parameterization global climate models (GCMs) created using above as predictors also adding geographic indicators (coast, slope, latitude) terms representing interactions predictors. regression predicts occurrence accurately up 86% time further applied MERRA-2. While there are regions overprediction underprediction, performance promising use GCMs.