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Lightning activity analyses with respect to the SPCZ location
Author(s) -
Ortéga P.,
Guignes T.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2007gl029730
Subject(s) - longitude , lightning (connector) , latitude , geographic coordinate system , geology , magnitude (astronomy) , meteorology , geodesy , geography , climatology , physics , power (physics) , quantum mechanics , astronomy
The South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ) stretches over the West Pacific warm pool Southeastward to French Polynesia. The Island Climate Update monthly publishes the mean location deduced from the total rainfall. On the other hand, the World Wide Lightning Location Network monthly provides data from which the lightning activity distribution in the 0°–30° South latitude and 150°–240° West longitude area can be drawn. Scanning this rectangle from West to East allows the spots of maximum lightning activity to be located versus the longitude. Fitting the location of these maxima with a polynomial function leads to a curve comparable with the monthly mean position of the SPCZ, showing that this band of cloudiness is one of the main sources of lightning in this whole area.