Lightning Density and Thunderstorm Initiation in the Lake Victoria Region in East Africa

No abstract availabl

Cross-Referencing GLM and ISS-LIS with Ground-Based Lightning Networks

No abstract availabl

Near Real-Time Lightning Data for Operations and Science Applications from the Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) on the International Space Station (ISS)

No abstract availabl

Cross-Referencing GLM and ISS-LIS with Ground-Based Lightning Networks

No abstract availabl

Geostationary Lightning Mapper Performance, Capabilities, and Applications

No abstract availabl

Lightning Imaging Sensor on the International Space Station: Assessments and Results from First Year Operations

Over two decades, the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and their partners have demonstrated the effectiveness and value of space-based lightning observations as a remote sensing tool for Earth science research and applications, and, in the process, established a robust global lightning climatology. The Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) provided global observations of tropical lightning for an impressive 17 years before that mission came to a close in April 2015. Now a space-qualified LIS, built as the flight spare for TRMM, has been installed on the International Space Station (ISS) for a minimum two year mission following its SpaceX launch on February 19, 2017. The LIS, flown as a hosted payload on the Department of Defense Space Test Program-Houston 5 (STP-H5) mission, was delivered to the ISS in the Dragon trunk and robotically installed in an Earth-viewing position on the outside of the ISS. Following successful activation and checkout, LIS has continuously observed the amount, rate, and radiant energy lightning within its field-of-view as it orbits the Earth. Placing LIS on the Space Station provides a great opportunity to not only extend the 17-year TRMM LIS record of tropical lightning measurements but also to expand that coverage to higher latitudes missed by the previous mission. Furthermore, this mission continues the important science focus to better understand the processes which cause lightning, as well as the connections between lightning and subsequent severe weather events. This understanding is a key to improving weather predictions and saving lives and property here in the United States and around the world. The LIS measurements, along with observations from the new Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) operating on NOAA's newest weather satellites, the Geosynchronous Operational Environmental Satellite-16/17 (GOES-16/17), are being used to cross-validate both systems. An especially unique contribution from the ISS platform is the production of real-time lightning data, especially valuable for operational forecasting and warning applications over data sparse regions such as the oceans. Finally, LIS provides simultaneous and complementary observations with other ISS payloads such as the European Space Agency's Atmosphere-Space Interaction Monitor (ASIM) that is exploring the connection between thunderstorms and lightning with terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs). Leveraging TRMM's well-established processing and data handling assures that LIS data can be quickly delivered to users

Analysis of new observational datasets relating to the organization and dynamical impacts of tropical convection

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2012Deep convection is a major heat source in the tropical atmosphere, driving circulation cells that are an important aspect of Earth's climate. The environmental conditions that modulate the occurrence of lightning, which is associated with vigorous convection, are examined using observations from WWLLN, a ground-based lightning network. Diurnal lightning climatologies illustrate the interplay between sea breezes, mountain-valley wind regimes, and remotely forced gravity waves in touching off thunderstorms in a wide variety of geographical settings. Over the Maritime Continent, 850-hPa wind speed and area-averaged cloudiness are shown to be inversely related to day-to-day lightning frequency over land. Both lightning and rainfall, which is observed by the TRMM satellite, are suppressed windward of, and enhanced leeward of mountain ranges. These relationships are also observed during the active and break periods of the intraseasonal Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO). The relationship between lightning and nitrogen oxide radicals, which are associated with ozone production, over the Maritime Continent is examined based on WWLLN observations and tropospheric NO2 data from the GOME-2 satellite. Composites of the daily NO2 regressed onto lightning frequency reveal a plume of enhanced NO2 following a day of enhanced lightning. Lightning and NO2 also vary coherently with the MJO, with variations of up to ~50% of the annual mean. MJO-related deep convection induces planetary-scale Kelvin and Rossby waves in the stably stratified tropical tropopause transition layer (TTL). The structure of these waves is investigated using satellite observations from COSMIC, CALIPSO, and MLS, as well as ERA-Interim wind and humidity fields. Regions of ascent in the planetary waves are associated with anomalously low temperatures, high radiative heating rates, enhanced cirrus occurrence, and high carbon monoxide and low ozone concentrations. Low water vapor concentrations lag the low temperature anomalies by ~1-2 weeks. Anomalies in each field tilt eastward with height in the TTL and propagate downward from the lower stratosphere to the upper troposphere. As the Kelvin wave front propagates eastward across equatorial South America and Africa, equatorially-symmetric, anomalously low temperature and water vapor mixing ratio and enhanced TTL cirrus are observed above ~100 hPa in the zonal-mean

Performance of the Optimal Estimated Detection Height for G16

No abstract availabl

Lightning Enhancement Over Major Oceanic Shipping Lanes

Data files used to generate figures in the above titled paper, published in Geophysical Research Letters 2017Using twelve years of high resolution global lightning stroke data from the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN), we show that lightning density is enhanced by up to a factor of two directly over shipping lanes in the northeastern Indian Ocean and the South China Sea as compared to adjacent areas with similar climatological characteristics. The lightning enhancement is most prominent during the convectively active season, November-April for the Indian Ocean and April-December in the South China Sea, and has been detectable from at least 2005 to the present. We hypothesize that emissions of aerosol particles and precursors by maritime vessel traffic lead to a microphysical enhancement of convection and storm electrification in the region of the shipping lanes. These persistent localized anthropogenic perturbations to otherwise clean regions are a unique opportunity to more thoroughly understand the sensitivity of maritime deep convection and lightning to aerosol particles

Supporting Data for Blossey et al (2018): Locally enhanced aerosols over a shipping lane produce convective invigoration but weak overall indirect effects in cloud-resolving simulations

Author: Peter Blossey, [email protected] This archive includes data and scripts used to generate the figures and table in: Peter N. Blossey, Christopher S. Bretherton, Joel A. Thornton and Katrina S. Virts, 2018. Locally enhanced aerosols over a shipping lane produce convective invigoration but weak overall indirect effects in cloud-resolving simulations. Submitted to Geophysical Research Letters. See the README file for a listing of files in the tar archive and a description of their use. The figures in the paper were generated with MATLAB R2017a, run on a linux system with the arguments "-nodesktop -nodisplay".The data and MATLAB scripts included here should enable the reproduction of the table and plots Blossey et al (2018, Geophys. Res. Lett., submitted), with the exception of two additional datasets that can be acquired as described below. The full dataset is larger than two terabytes, so that a subset of the data is included here. Data beyond that needed for the figures in the paper is included, so that the interested user may look at other selected quantities in the simulations using the data here.DOE awards DE-SC0011602 and DE-SC0018221. NOAA grant NA13OAR4310104. NSF award OISE-1743753. NASA Postdoctoral Program