LAUSR

Atmospheric electricity has been studied since the early 1700s. Fueled by an interest in lightning, scientists aimed to unravel whether thunderclouds contained electricity in both the laboratory (Wall 1708) and in the atmosphere (Franklin 1751; Dalibart 1752; de Romas 1753; Cavallo 1776). However, electrification of the air was also detected during fair weather conditions (Lemonnier 1752), sparking a wider interest and centuries of studies on the origin and spatiotemporal variability of atmospheric electricity (for a detailed historical overview, see Nicoll 2012). This culminated in the insight that atmospheric electrical phenomena are sustained by a global atmospheric electric circuit (GEC) that is primarily driven by thunderstorm and shower cloud activity (Wilson 1906, 1920). Only relatively recently, scientists began to consider atmospheric electricity as a meteorological parameter potentially capable of driving biological processes. Work in the early twentieth century focused, for instance, on how ions can affect human health (e.g., Krueger and Smith 1958), or how atmospheric electricity could potentially enhance plant growth (Lemström 1890; Lodge 1908) or affect virulence in flu epidemics (Huntington 1920). To date, such viewpoints remain largely untested and inconclusive, yet remain ever so topical with increasing population densities and increasing pressures on both the physical environment and climate. This special issue unites new research that links atmospheric electricity with biology and human well-being that collectively highlight the importance of a rejuvenated interest in this field. Studying complex links between atmospheric electricity and biological systems as well as their interactions requires an integration of various parameters. A multiand transdisciplinary approach is therefore needed that considers concepts and methodologies from disparate scientific disciplines ranging from data science, meteorology, and atmospheric physics to biological and medical sciences. It is thus essential that knowledge can be shared between different disciplines. Accordingly, Fdez-Arroyabe et al. (2020) develop in this special issue a glossary of relevant terms and concepts to facilitate integration in common research and to provide a valuable resource for those seeking an understanding of atmospheric electricity and its links to biological systems. Likewise, to allow for further retrospective analysis of available data, a semantic approach is necessary. To this end, Savoska et al. (2020) develop an ontology for existing data on atmospheric electricity within the context of biological systems that are distributed over many databases. Establishing common terminology and an environment for data sharing will benefit the sharing of interdisciplinary research progress and facilitate data reusability across the research communities. Various sources of electricity are pervasive in the atmosphere, and each has different degrees of variability and potential interactions with biology. On a global scale, electromagnetic fields are ubiquitous, and their links to biology have been studied more extensively over the last century (e.g., König et al. 1981). More locally, research has demonstrated the biological impacts of lightning strikes (e.g., Demanèche et al. 2001; Schaller et al. 2013), the production of ions (e.g., Matthews et al. 2010), radionuclides (e.g., Krivolutsky and Pokarzhevsky 1992), and the increasing use of electrical technology. More recently, evidence has emerged that biology is linked with static electric fields that are pervasive throughout the Earth’s atmosphere (e.g., Clarke et al. 2013; Morley and Robert 2018; Hunting et al. 2019). In this special issue, Hunting et al. (2020) provide an overview of this wide array of atmospheric electrical phenomena and their ties to biology, in which conceptual and technical challenges, as well as * Ellard R. Hunting [email protected]