Analysis of lightning strokes associated with sprites observed by ISUAL in the vicinity of North America

作者：Lu, Gaopeng^*; Cummer, Steven A.; Chen, Alfred B.; Lyu, Fanchao; Li, Dongshuai; Liu, Fei; Hsu, Rue-Ron; Su, Han-Tzong

来源：Terrestrial, Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, 2017, 28(4): 583-595.

DOI：10.3319/TAO.2017.03.31.01

• Cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning stroke
• Negative sprite
• Space observation
• Impulse charge moment change (iCMC)

We examined the broadband (< 1 Hz to 30 kHz) lightning sferics associated with 395 sprites observed near North America by the Imager of Sprites and Upper Atmospheric Lightning (ISUAL) onboard the FORMOSAT-2 satellite in a 12-year period from 2004 -2015. Our analysis indicates that the ISUAL dataset contains a significant fraction (69, or similar to 18%) of negative sprites, which were predominantly (> 80%) observed over oceanic and coastal thunderstorms mostly in tropical areas. The mean and median of impulse charge moment change (iCMC) associated with positive (negative) sprites are + 346 C km (-709 C km) and + 280 C km (-649 C km), respectively. The morphology and parent lightning properties (e. g., typically with high peak currents > -80 kA and large iCMCs > -300 C km) of negative sprites observed by the ISUAL are generally consistent with that documented in ground-based observations, but the ISUAL dataset does imply that sprites are sometimes produced by negative strokes with sub-critical iCMCs (less than -300 C km). Consequently, the future survey of global occurrence of sprites is desired to be based on complementary ground and space-borne observations.

• 出版日期2017-8
• 单位中国科学院大气物理研究所; 南京信息工程大学