Lightning season on Earth
Cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning is a common phenomenon on Earth, occurring in almost all regions of the planet. Recent optical observations of lightning from the space by the Optical Transient Detector (OTD) onboard the OV-1 satellite suggest that even though a large fraction of CG lightning on Earth occurs in the tropical region, lightning is also common in the temperate regions. At the same time, even though lightning occurs throughout the year in most regions on Earth, in general it has a very large seasonal cycle in its occurrence, being more common during the summer season and part of the spring and autumn. This fact has suggested to many authors introduce the name “lightning season in order to refer to the period with larger lighting activity along the year. In this article we have investigated the duration of the lightning season at different countries in the tropical and temperate regions using data provided by Lightning Location Systems (LLS). Only LLS data correspondent to continuous periods longer than 5 years were considered to minimize statistical variations. The duration of the lightning season was defined as the number of months in which the lightning activity was larger than 50％ of the peak monthly activity. It was found that the lightning season varies from two to six months. The data also suggest that the lightning season tends to be longer in the tropical region than in the temperate region. The possible reasons for this difference are discussed, in particular its dependence on the surface temperature difference from summer to winter. Finally, the implications of the variation in the lightning season on the annual lightning activity in different countries are explored.
I.R.C.A. Pinto O. Pinto Jr. K.P. Naccarato
Atmospheric Electricity Group – ELAT,Brazilian Institute of Space Research (INPE), S.J. Campos, SP, 12227-010, Brazil
国际会议
第13届国际大气电学会议(The 13th International Conference on Atmospheric Electricity)
北京
英文
2007-08-13（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）