Thunderstorms - The Good - The Bad - The Evil
Thunderstorms can damage or destroy planes flying into or under them. As long as pilots use common sense in preflight weather briefings and practice techniques to exit a thunderstorm or avoid one while flying they do have a few good points.
On a humorous note, if you are inside a thunderstorm your aircraft traffic usually falls to zero.
They provide water for many continents during the summer months world-wide. Without water many continents would become dry. Plants, which use carbon dioxide ( do you really want to limit carbon dioxide emissions ) and release oxygen as a by-product, receive water in large amounts from the rain produced by thunderstorms. Without water fish would die, crops fail from extreme droughts and animals would perish.
Environmentalists need to create thunderstorms to prevent global warming. Thunderstorms are natural air conditioners. Hot air from the earths surface is rises up into the high atmosphere from the formation of a thunderstorm. The cloud formation from thunderstorms give humans and lower animals shade and eventually cooling rain on a hot day.
This is interesting. The earth, without thunderstorms, would have it's temperature rise as much as 20 degrees F.
The summer dust, haze ( impediment to VFR flying conditions and safety ) and other pollutants come together in the lower atmosphere to create smog. When thunderstorms are created by rising air and moisture that trap pollutants the air spreads the pollutants higher up into the atmosphere clearing the air below. Once the cumulus clouds build into the actual thunderstorm, with resulting rain, the air is washed and the pollutants are returned to the earths soil. Breathing becomes easier and less harmful.
Lightning produced by thunderstorms helps keep the electrical balance between the earth and the atmosphere under control. Friction of the gases ( air ) creates static electricity that is released by the formation of lightning. This can be observed by dry lightning that many pilots view periodically at night.
Lightning is also a fertilizer. It changes nitrogen gas in the air to nitrogen compounds that fall to the ground by gravity or through the rain produced by thunderstorms. Nitrogen is one of the main ingredients of fertilizer needed for farming to produce the crops eaten world-wide. Ten percent of the nitrogen fertilizer needed for farming, world-wide, is made by lightening.
Finally, what beautiful rainbows a thunderstorm can produce along with the inspiration for song and dance.
Finally, what beautiful rainbows a thunderstorm can produce along with the inspiration for song and dance.
