50 years ago, the sun’s influence on Earth’s lightning was revealed
Excerpt from the June 22, 1974 issue of Science News
Cyclical bursts of solar radiation seem to enhance lightning strikes on Earth, mounting evidence suggests. But the mechanism remains unclear.
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Lightning and the sun — Science News, June 22, 1974
The latest addition to the growing list of meteorological phenomena which have been linked with solar activity is lightning…. Using data from 1930 to 1973, [a researcher] reports in the May 24 Nature that “in spite of year-to-year variations in the incidence of lightning, there is an underlying cyclic variation with a period of about 11 years which is in phase with the solar cycle.”