The importance of atmospheric electricity research has been increasingly recognized in recent decades. Research on atmospheric electricity has been actively conducted since the 1980 s in China. Lightning physics and i...The importance of atmospheric electricity research has been increasingly recognized in recent decades. Research on atmospheric electricity has been actively conducted since the 1980 s in China. Lightning physics and its effects, as important branches of atmospheric electricity, have received more attention because of their significance both in scientific research and lightning protection applications. This paper reviews atmospheric electricity research based primarily on ground-based field experiments at different regions in China in the last decade. The results described in this review include physics and effects of lightning, rocket-triggered lightning and its physical processes of discharge, thunderstorm electricity on the Tibetan Plateau and its surrounding areas, lightning activity associated with severe convective storms, the effect and response of lightning to climate change, numerical simulation of thunderstorm electrification and lightning discharge, lightning detection and location techniques, and transient luminous events above thunderstorms.展开更多
By using the cloud-to-ground(CG)lightning location data from the lightning detection network of He-nan Province,surface Doppler radar data and standard orbit data of PR,TMI and LIS on TRMM satellite,the spatial and te...By using the cloud-to-ground(CG)lightning location data from the lightning detection network of He-nan Province,surface Doppler radar data and standard orbit data of PR,TMI and LIS on TRMM satellite,the spatial and temporal characteristics of CG lightning flashes in 10 severe hailstorms are analyzed.The results show that the percentage of+CG lightning in these hailstorms is high with an average value of 45.5%.There is a distinct increase in CG flash rate during the rapid development stage of hailstorms.The hailstone falling corresponds to an active positive flash period,and the increase of+CG flash rate is generally accompanied with a decrease of–CG flash rate.The flash rate declines rapidly during the dissipating stage of hailstorms.The precipitation structure and lightning activity in two typical hail-storms are studied in detail.It is found that strong convective cells with reflectivity greater than 30dBZ mainly are situated in the front region of hailstorms,whereas the trailing stratiform region is in the rear part of the hailstorms.The maximum heights of echo top are higher than 14 km.Convective rain con-tributes much more rainfall to the total than stratiform rain,and the convective rain takes about 85%and 97%of the total in the two cases,respectively.Total lightning in the hailstorms is very active with the flash rate up to 183 fl/min and 55 fl/min,respectively.The results also indicate that most lightning flashes occurred in the echo region greater than 30 dBZ and its immediate periphery.The probability of lightning occurrence is 20 times higher in the convective region than in the stratiform region.The result suggests that the lightning information is helpful to the identification of convective rain region.The linear relationship between flash rate and ice water content is disclosed primarily.展开更多
Gigantic jet(GJ) is a type of large-scaled transient discharge which occurs above thunderstorms.It connects the thunderstorms and ionosphere directly.Compared with the other transient luminous events(TLEs),gigantic je...Gigantic jet(GJ) is a type of large-scaled transient discharge which occurs above thunderstorms.It connects the thunderstorms and ionosphere directly.Compared with the other transient luminous events(TLEs),gigantic jet is very difficult to be seen from the ground.We report a GJ event that was clearly recorded in eastern China(storm center located at 35.6°N,119.8°E,near the Huanghai Sea) at 20:16:22(local time) on 12 August,2010.It is by far the furthest from the equator ground-based GJ recorded over summer thunderstorm.The top altitude of this GJ was estimated to be about 89 km.The GJ-producing storm was a multi-cell thunderstorm and the GJ event occurred in the storm developing stage,with the lowest cloud-top brightness temperature about 73°C and the maximum radar echo top around 17 km.Altitudes with reflectivity of 45 dBZ were estimated to reach 12-14 km.Different from results from other countries that positive CGs(Cloud-to-ground lightnings) dominated during a time period centered at GJ,our study shows that negative CGs dominated during a time period centered at the GJ event and during most of the storm lifetime in this study,indicating a diversity of the lightning activity in the GJ-producing storms.It is interesting that two different storms produced two types of TLEs,that is,the GJ-producing storm only produced one GJ event during its lifetime and five sprites were produced over another storm,different from the other study that sprites and GJs were usually produced by the same storm,enriched the knowledge of GJ-producing storms.In addition,the GJ event in this study is located beyond the effective coverage area(30°S-30°N) of the ISUAL instruments onboard the FORMOSAT II satellite,and results of this study could be useful for GJ studies in the future.展开更多
基金supported by the National Key Basic Research and Development (973) Program of China (2014CB441400)the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41475002)
文摘The importance of atmospheric electricity research has been increasingly recognized in recent decades. Research on atmospheric electricity has been actively conducted since the 1980 s in China. Lightning physics and its effects, as important branches of atmospheric electricity, have received more attention because of their significance both in scientific research and lightning protection applications. This paper reviews atmospheric electricity research based primarily on ground-based field experiments at different regions in China in the last decade. The results described in this review include physics and effects of lightning, rocket-triggered lightning and its physical processes of discharge, thunderstorm electricity on the Tibetan Plateau and its surrounding areas, lightning activity associated with severe convective storms, the effect and response of lightning to climate change, numerical simulation of thunderstorm electrification and lightning discharge, lightning detection and location techniques, and transient luminous events above thunderstorms.
基金Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant Nos.40325013,40505001 and 40135010)
文摘By using the cloud-to-ground(CG)lightning location data from the lightning detection network of He-nan Province,surface Doppler radar data and standard orbit data of PR,TMI and LIS on TRMM satellite,the spatial and temporal characteristics of CG lightning flashes in 10 severe hailstorms are analyzed.The results show that the percentage of+CG lightning in these hailstorms is high with an average value of 45.5%.There is a distinct increase in CG flash rate during the rapid development stage of hailstorms.The hailstone falling corresponds to an active positive flash period,and the increase of+CG flash rate is generally accompanied with a decrease of–CG flash rate.The flash rate declines rapidly during the dissipating stage of hailstorms.The precipitation structure and lightning activity in two typical hail-storms are studied in detail.It is found that strong convective cells with reflectivity greater than 30dBZ mainly are situated in the front region of hailstorms,whereas the trailing stratiform region is in the rear part of the hailstorms.The maximum heights of echo top are higher than 14 km.Convective rain con-tributes much more rainfall to the total than stratiform rain,and the convective rain takes about 85%and 97%of the total in the two cases,respectively.Total lightning in the hailstorms is very active with the flash rate up to 183 fl/min and 55 fl/min,respectively.The results also indicate that most lightning flashes occurred in the echo region greater than 30 dBZ and its immediate periphery.The probability of lightning occurrence is 20 times higher in the convective region than in the stratiform region.The result suggests that the lightning information is helpful to the identification of convective rain region.The linear relationship between flash rate and ice water content is disclosed primarily.
基金supported by the Special Fund for Public Welfare Industry (GYHY201006005-07)the National Natural Science Foundation of China (40930949,41175002)the National Science and Technology Support Projects(2008BAC36B03)
文摘Gigantic jet(GJ) is a type of large-scaled transient discharge which occurs above thunderstorms.It connects the thunderstorms and ionosphere directly.Compared with the other transient luminous events(TLEs),gigantic jet is very difficult to be seen from the ground.We report a GJ event that was clearly recorded in eastern China(storm center located at 35.6°N,119.8°E,near the Huanghai Sea) at 20:16:22(local time) on 12 August,2010.It is by far the furthest from the equator ground-based GJ recorded over summer thunderstorm.The top altitude of this GJ was estimated to be about 89 km.The GJ-producing storm was a multi-cell thunderstorm and the GJ event occurred in the storm developing stage,with the lowest cloud-top brightness temperature about 73°C and the maximum radar echo top around 17 km.Altitudes with reflectivity of 45 dBZ were estimated to reach 12-14 km.Different from results from other countries that positive CGs(Cloud-to-ground lightnings) dominated during a time period centered at GJ,our study shows that negative CGs dominated during a time period centered at the GJ event and during most of the storm lifetime in this study,indicating a diversity of the lightning activity in the GJ-producing storms.It is interesting that two different storms produced two types of TLEs,that is,the GJ-producing storm only produced one GJ event during its lifetime and five sprites were produced over another storm,different from the other study that sprites and GJs were usually produced by the same storm,enriched the knowledge of GJ-producing storms.In addition,the GJ event in this study is located beyond the effective coverage area(30°S-30°N) of the ISUAL instruments onboard the FORMOSAT II satellite,and results of this study could be useful for GJ studies in the future.
