Cifra, MichalApollonio, FrancescaLiberti, MicaelaGarcía Sánchez, TomásMir, Lluis M.2020-07-152020-07-152020Cifra M, Apollonio F, Liberti M, García-Sánchez T, Mir LM. Possible molecular and cellular mechanisms at the basis of atmospheric electromagnetic field bioeffects. Int J Biometeorol. 2020 Apr 25;(Spec No Atmospheric Electricity and Biometeorology). DOI: 10.1007/s00484-020-01885-10020-7128http://hdl.handle.net/10230/45120Mechanisms of how electromagnetic (EM) field acts on biological systems are governed by the same physics regardless of the origin of the EM field (technological, atmospheric...), given that EM parameters are the same. We draw from a large body of literature of bioeffects of a man-made electromagnetic field. In this paper, we performed a focused review on selected possible mechanisms of how atmospheric electromagnetic phenomena can act at the molecular and cellular level. We first briefly review the range of frequencies and field strengths for both electric and magnetic fields in the atmosphere. Then, we focused on a concise description of the current knowledge on weak electric and magnetic field bioeffects with possible molecular mechanisms at the basis of possible EM field bioeffects combined with modeling strategies to estimate reliable outcomes and speculate about the biological effects linked to lightning or pyroelectricity. Indeed, we bring pyroelectricity as a natural source of voltage gradients previously unexplored. While very different from lightning, it can result in similar bioeffects based on similar mechanisms, which can lead to close speculations on the importance of these atmospheric electric fields in the evolution.application/pdfengThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00484-020-01885-1Electromagnetic fieldBioeffectsAtmosphereinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess