@Wikipedia

Lightning may strike in an instant, but its ecological toll lingers for years. According to a new global study published in Global Change Biology, lightning directly kills approximately 320 million trees each year — a number that rivals other major causes of forest disturbance but has gone largely unrecognized. These deaths release an estimated 0.21–0.30 gigatons of carbon annually, underscoring lightning’s surprising role in shaping forest structure and the global carbon cycle. While lightning has long been associated with wildfires, its direct impact on tree mortality has rarely been quantified. To address this gap, researchers at the Technical University of Munich integrated lightning mortality into a dynamic global vegetation model known as LPJ-GUESS. …Most of this mortality occurs in tropical Africa, where both lightning density and the prevalence of tall, vulnerable trees are high. However, the study also found that as climate change intensifies thunderstorms, lightning-induced tree deaths could increase in temperate and boreal forests.