LAUSR

Abstract Many atmospheric processes such as atmospheric ionization, cloudiness, temperature and terrestrial lightning have been attributed to galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) hitting the Earth's atmosphere. While some of these theories linking cosmic rays with Earth's geophysical phenomena have been well addressed with empirical results, there are a lot of open fields in the GCR-lightning hypothesis. Some authors have, for instance, investigated the proposal using regional lightning data (Chronis, 2009). The present study uses global lightning data from the world-wide lightning location network (WWLLN) to test the claim that GCRs are responsible for Earth's atmospheric lightning. Regression and superposed epoch analyses are both employed in this investigation. We conclude that the results are consistent with a causal role of GCRs in lightning strikes.