What worried Andrew Farrell most was the terrifying prospect of the historic windmill one day being struck by lightning. A bolt five times hotter than the surface of the sun would instantly turn the moisture in one of the windmill’s beams into steam, causing it to explode. What if a raging fire then engulfed the 160-year-old building? Perhaps most disturbingly, he couldn’t shake the thought that this nightmare might become more and more likely with each passing year, due to climate change.
So Farrell, from the Broads Authority, a British public body, decided to install a lightning protection system on Lamb milla 19th century windmill located in the flat, wide wetland landscape of eastern England known as the Norfolk Broads.
“These mills stand out like perfect conductors to the sky,” says Farrell. Inside Mutton Mill is a rare waterwheel, once used to drain the area’s marshes for agricultural purposes. The mill itself is a listed historic building, measuring 23 metres high, including its blades. Thousands of dollars have been spent restoring it in recent years.
Now, hooked conductive rods at the ends of the windmill’s four sail arms are in place, ready to catch an angry bolt of lightning and harmlessly transmit it to rods buried in the nearby marsh. Farrell is confident this can save the historic structure. Though he adds, “You know, if they do hit it, it’ll probably scare the hell out of the owl that’s hovering up there.”
According to the Royal Meteorological Society of the United Kingdom, for every degree of atmospheric warming, The air can hold about 7 percent more moisture.Warmer, more humid air means a greater risk of thunderstorms and therefore lightning strikes, the Society adds. Farrell says he has already noticed an increase in thunderstorm activity in Norfolk anecdotally. Scientists remain unsure of how much the frequency of lightning strikes could increase worldwide. But organisations are already taking the threat seriously and quietly acting to protect buildings and critical infrastructure from future strikes.
According to information available in online documents, bodies weighing up the risks include Scottish Water, which has considered the possibility of lightning strikes at biogas plants, potentially harming workers or the general public. The International Civil Aviation Organisation, meanwhile, has considered the possibility of more frequent lightning causing disruption to flight schedules, damaging aircraft or disabling radar towers. Network Rail in the UK is also looking at the threat to railway signalling and electrical equipment in a presentation document.
And in a 2021 report, National Grid Electricity Transmission, the company that maintains the high-voltage power grid in England and Wales, said it had already gathered “evidence that lightning strikes around our assets are increasing in some areas.” While the system is largely resilient at present, the report added, “the impact of increased lightning strikes in the future will need to be considered.”
The U.S. Department of Defense is also concerned about lightning, says Caroline Baxter, a senior adviser at the Strategic Risk Council. “One thing that has been underestimated is the risk that military installations face from the effects of climate change, including lightning,” she says, noting that some states particularly prone to lightning, such as Louisiana and Georgia, are also home to major military bases.