M. Brook

A distinct class of isolated intracloud lightning discharges and their associated radio emissions

Observations of radio emissions from thunderstorms were made during the summer of 1996 using two arrays of sensors located in northern New Mexico. The first array consisted of three fast electric field change meters separated by distances of 30 to 230 km. The second array consisted of three broadband (3 to 30 MHz) HF data acquisition systems separated by distances of 6 to 13 km. Differences in signal times of arrival at multiple stations were used to locate the sources of received signals. Relative times of arrival of signal reflections from the ionosphere and Earth were used to determine source heights. A distinct class of short-duration electric field change emissions was identified and characterized. The emissions have previously been termed narrow positive bipolar pulses (NPBPs). NPBPs were emitted from singular intracloud discharges that occurred in the most active regions of three thunderstorms located in New Mexico and west Texas. The discharges occurred at altitudes between 8 and 11 km above mean sea level. NEXRAD radar images show that the NPBP sources were located in close proximity to high reflectivity storm cores where reflectivity values were in excess of 40 dBZ. NPBP electric field change waveforms were isolated, bipolar, initially positive pulses with peak amplitudes comparable to those of return stroke field change waveforms. The mean FWHM (full width at half maximum) of initial NPBP field change pulses was 4.7 μs. The HF emissions associated with NPBPs were broadband noise-like radiation bursts with a mean duration of 2.8 μs and amplitudes 10 times larger than emissions from typical intracloud and cloud-to-ground lightning processes. Calculations indicate that the events represent a distinct class of singular, isolated lightning discharges that have limited spatial extents of 300 to 1000 m and occur in high electric field regions. The unique radio emissions produced by these discharges, in combination with their unprecedented physical characteristics, clearly distinguish the events from other types of previously observed thunderstorm electrical processes.

High speed video of initial sprite development

High speed video of sprites show that they are typically initiated at an altitude of about 75 km and usually develop simultaneously upwards and downwards from the point of origin with an initial columniform shape. The initial development of sprites appears to be dominated by corona streamers with velocities in excess of 107 m/s. Many of the observed characteristics are consistent with a conventional breakdown mechanism for both sprite initiation and initial sprite development.

Lightning induced brightening in the airglow layer

This report describes a transient luminosity observed at the altitude of the airglow layer (about 95 km) in coincidence with a lightning flash in a tropical oceanic thunderstorm directly beneath it. This event provides new evidence of direct coupling between lightning and ionospheric events. This luminous event in the ionosphere was the only one of its kind observed during an examination of several thousand images of lightning recorded under suitable viewing conditions with Space Shuttle cameras. Several possible mechanisms and interpretations are discussed briefly.

Observations of lightning in the stratosphere

An examination and analysis of video images of lightning, captured by the payload bay TV cameras of the space shuttle, provided a variety of examples of lightning in the stratosphere above thunderstorms. These images were obtained on several recent shuttle flights while conducting the Mesoscale Lightning Experiment (MLE). The images of stratospheric lightning illustrate the variety of filamentary and broad vertical discharges in the stratosphere that may accompany a lightning flash. A typical event is imaged as a single or multiple filament extending 30 to 40 km above a thunderstorm that is illuminated by a series of lightning strokes. Examples are found in temperate and tropical areas, over the oceans, and over the land.

Microsecond-scale electric field pulses in cloud lightning discharges

From wideband electric field records acquired using a 12-bit digitizing system with a 500-ns sampling interval, microsecond-scale pulses in different stages of cloud flashes in Florida and New Mexico are analyzed. Pulse occurrence statistics and waveshape characteristics are presented. The larger pulses tend to occur early in the flash, confirming the results of Bils et al. (1988) and in contrast with the three-stage representation of cloud-discharge electric fields suggested by Kitagawa and Brook (1960). Possible explanations for the discrepancy are discussed. The tendency for the larger pulses to occur early in the cloud flash suggests that they are related to the initial in-cloud channel formation processes and contradicts the common view found in the atmospheric radio-noise literature that the main sources of VLF/LF electromagnetic radiation in cloud flashes are the K processes which occur in the final, or J type, part of the cloud discharge.

The role of the space shuttle videotapes in the discovery of sprites, jets and elves

Abstract The sequence of videotape observations of the upper atmospheric optical flashes called sprites, jets, starters, and ELVES are described in the successive phases of search, discovery, confirmation, and exploration for the years before 1993. Although there were credible eyewitness accounts from ground observers and pilots, these reports did not inspire a systematic search for hard evidence of such phenomena. The science community would instead wait for serendipitous observations to move the leading edge of this science forward. The phenomenon, now known as a sprite, was first accidently documented on ground based videotape recordings on the night of 6 July, 1989. Video observations from the space shuttle acquired from 1989–1991 provided 17 additional examples to confirm the existence of the sprite phenomenon. Successful video observations from a mountain ridge by Lyons, starting on 7 July, 1993, and night-time aircraft video observations by Sentman and Wescott on 8 July, 1993 established the basic science of the sprite phenomena by acquiring and analyzing data based on hundreds of new events. The 1994 Sprites campaign and the video entitled ‘‘Red Sprites and Blue Jets’’ popularized the name sprite and provided a vocabulary of terms to describe the visual attributes. Prior to this video, investigators used a variety of vague descriptive words to describe the individual events. Also, during the 1994 campaign, Wescott and coworkers obtained the first quantitative measurements of jets and provided the name ‘blue jets’. A third phenomenon was discovered in video from the STS-41 mission (October 1990) in the lower ionosphere directly above an active thunderstorm. It consisted of a large horizontal brightening several hundred kilometers across at the altitude of the airglow layer. In 1995, Lyons and associates confirmed the existence of this type of very brief brightening which they named Emissions of Light and Very Low Frequency Perturbations From Electromagnetic Pulse Sources (ELVES). Because sprites, jets, and ELVES have appeared for millennia, their discovery was inevitable. The partial history related in this paper outlines the unsophisticated activities using space shuttle videotapes and the dissemination of the results by video presentations during the early phases of sprite research. This paper does not attempt to evaluate the advances in the science based on the measurement campaigns of Lyons, Sentman and many other investigators.

Detection of daytime sprites via a unique sprite ELF signature

On August 14, 1998, 3 separate daytime sprite events were detected via a unique extremely low frequency (ELF) sprite signature. The onset of the sprite ELF signatures was delayed by 11.0–13.2 ms from positive cloud-to-ground strokes which had attained exceptionally large charge moment (charge times height) changes of 3900–6100 C·km. It is shown that a charge moment change of 6100 C·km may have been sufficient for conventional breakdown at ≃54 km altitude, assuming an experimentally measured ion conductivity profile of Holzworth et al., [1985]. The daytime sprites themselves contained unusually large charge moment changes of ≃2800 C·km, ≃1200 C·km, and ≃910 C·km.

Lightning in the Region of the TOGA COARE

Abstract In the fall of 1992 a lightning direction finder network was deployed in the western Pacific Ocean in the area of Papua New Guinea. Direction finders were installed on Kapingamarangi Atoll and near the towns of Rabaul and Kavieng, Papua New Guinea. The instruments were modified to detect cloud-to-ground lightning out to a distance of 900 km. Data were collected from cloud-to-ground lightning flashes for the period 26 November 1992–15 January 1994. The analyses are presented for the period 1 January 1993–31 December 1993. In addition, a waveform recorder was located at Kavieng to record both cloud-to-ground lightning and intracloud lightning in order to provide an estimate of the complete lightning activity. The data from these instruments are to be analyzed in conjunction with the data from ship and airborne radars, in-cloud microphysics, and electrical measurements from both the ER-2 and DC-8. The waveform instrumentation operated from approximately mid-January through February 1993. Over 150 00...

The use of dual channel circular-polarization radar observations for remotely sensing storm electrification

SummaryObservations of thunderstorms with a dual channel circularpolarization radar have provided dramatic indications of the buildup of the electric field inside the storms and of the sudden collapse of the field at the time of lightning. The indications are obtained by coherently correlating the simultaneous returns in the right- and left-hand circular polarization channels of the radar, and follow up on the pioneering observations of this type by Hendry and McCormick (1976). The correlation is estimated and displayed in real time and the results enable one to predict when a storm has the potential for producing a lightning discharge, and often to anticipate the occurrence of individual discharges. The observations detect the presence of electrically aligned particles, believed to be small ice crystals, which are aligned by the electrostatic field of the storm. The aligned particles cause the radar signal to become progressively depolarized as it propagates through an alignment region, giving rise to correlated right- and left-circular polarization echoes. The alignment direction can be determined from the phase of the correlation and is found to be predominantly vertical, indicating a similar electric field orientation. Weaker horizontal alignment is often observed immediately following lightning discharges, consistent with the idea that the aligned particles are ice platelets which fall with horizontal orientation due to aerodynamic forces. The observations have been found to reveal the onset of strong electrification in developing storms and to indicate when decaying storms no longer have the potential to produce lightning. By compensating for signal-to-noise effects, the variation of the depolarization with range can be determined. This provides detailed pictures of the alignment regions which could be used as tracers of ice crystal populations in storms. The pictures also show the spatial variation of the alignment directions, raising the possibility of remotely mapping the storm electric field structure. Finally, the depolarization rate results readily enable one to distinguish between liquid and solid precipitation in the storms.

An Unusual Lightning Flash at Kennedy Space Center

A lightning flash that struck the 150-meter weather tower at Kennedy Space Center was studied by several research groups using varioul techniques. The flash had unusually large peak currents and a stepped leader of relatively short duration. The charged regions neutralized by the three return strokes were located within a horizontal layer between heights of about 6 and 8 kilometers, where environmental temperatures were about –10� to –20�C. The charge source for the first return stroke coincided with a vertical shaft of precipitation inferred to have been graupel or hail. Charge sources for subsequent strokes were near the edge of the detectable precipitation echo. The overall channel length was about 10 kilometers. A Vertically oriented intracloud discharge occurred after the three return strokes.