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
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 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.
