Is lightning helpful?

Answer 1

A lightning stroke provides a good example of purpose in nature. Lightning may frighten us, but it also serves an important function: It helps provide our daily need of the element nitrogen. Nitrogen is the third most abundant element in the human body, and it must be renewed continually.We are actually surrounded by nitrogen, since it comprises 78 percent of the earth's atmosphere. However, we cannot use the nitrogen in this molecular, gaseous form; nitrogen gas has a strong covalent bond that our bodies cannot break down. Instead, nitrogen must first be taken up by plants as part of the food chain.There are two major ways in which nitrogen becomes part of vegetation. First, certain plants are able to absorb or "fix" nitrogen through their root systems. These plants are called legumes and include clover and peas. Legumes are distinguished by nitrogen-fixing bacteria that live inside their root nodules. These bacteria change the N2 form of atmospheric nitrogen into nitrate, NO3 : N2 + 3O2 ---> 2NO3In the nitrate, form the legumes, as well as other plants, can utilize the needed nitrogen.Through a diet that includes either these plants directly or the products from grazing animals we make the nitrogen available to our bodies.The second major way by which nitrogen is transformed into a usable form is by lightning. The great electrical energy of lightning is easily able to convert N2 to NO3.

Answer 2

It is the very stuff that life is made from.

Lightning is an atmospheric discharge of electricity, usually, but not always, during a rain storm.

The growth of all organisms depends on the availability of mineral nutrients, and none is more important than nitrogen, which is required in large amounts as an essential component of proteins, nucleic acids and other cellular constituents. There is an abundant supply of nitrogen in the earth's atmosphere - nearly 79% in the form of N2 gas. However, N2 is unavailable for use by most organisms because there is a triple bond between the two nitrogen atoms, making the molecule almost inert. In order for nitrogen to be used for growth it must be "fixed" (combined) in the form of ammonium (NH4) or nitrate (NO3) ions. The weathering of rocks releases these ions so slowly that it has a neglible effect on the availability of fixed nitrogen. So, nitrogen is often the limiting factor for growth and biomass production in all environments where there is suitable climate and availability of water to support life.

Sometimes you think you can smell lightning. Actually, what you smell is the ozone produced by lightning. (Ozone is three oxygen molecules - O3 - bound together. It breaks down into a molecule - O2 - plus an atom of free oxygen - O - that reacts with anything handy (including nerve endings in your nose.)

The electrical current and intense temperatures produced by a lightning stroke create a mini-chemical factory where ordinary oxygen (O2) and nitrogen (N2) molecules are chopped into atoms and then into ions.

Most of these atoms reform as ordinary oxygen and nitrogen, but a significant number form nitrous oxide compounds (NO, NO2, and NOx). In the 1983 Global Troposphere Experiment, aircraft sampled the air inside two cumulonimbus clouds and found that the levels of NO had risen 50-fold, from 20 to 1000 parts per trillion.

If this proves to be true of all thunderclouds, then lightning - especially cloud-to-cloud flashes closer to the stratosphere - could be a significant producer of chemicals that deplete the Earth's protective ozone layer.

However, they also help to restore it - The true benifit is a relatively small amount of ammonia is produced by lightning. Some ammonia also is produced industrially by the Haber-Bosch process, using an iron-based catalyst, very high pressures and fairly high temperature. But the major conversion of N2 into ammonia, and thence into proteins, is achieved by microorganisms in the process called nitrogen fixation (or dinitrogen fixation).

However small the amount of nitrogen fixing caused by Lightning, it is mainly during the watering of plants, and this fertiliser goes staight into the soil. Lightning was probally the process that allowed plant oganisms to migrate from the sea, and start life on the earth, because it fertilised the dead alluvial deposits of the crust.

Answer 3

I can't really think of any ways that it would be useful except from use in experiments involving lightning, and predicting the weather to a certain extent. The idea of harnessing lightning for electricity is not such a good one as it could strike anywhere at any time. PLEASE for the love of god ignore the first answerer.

Answer 4

A group of good answers!! Lightning is continuously saving our planet from death by methane. Lightning produces ozone which is essential in breaking down methane(CH4) to CO2 and H2O. Otherwise we would have an atmosphere of methane and no life could exist!!

Answer 5

Lightning is a high flow of electric charges from clouds to ground. Helpful nope i dont think so....... Dangerous...........

Answer 6

Makes nitrates from nitrogen and oxygen. Useful plant food

Answer 7

Lightening is essentially a huge build up of static electricity that gets dischraged, so its essential in 'relieving' pressure build up of electricity in the atmosphere

Answer 8

Yes, it culls the idiots from the golf courses that stay out when it starts raining & would normally slow-play and ruin the day for the serious golfers!

Answer 9

lightning fix in nitrogen fixation in the soil

Answer 10

It helps turn dead wood into compost by setting it alight and so aids the circle of life in the forest....