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Estimating lightning current moment waveforms from satellite optical measurements
Author(s) -
Adachi Toru,
Cummer Steven A.,
Li Jingbo,
Takahashi Yukihiro,
Hsu RueRon,
Su HanTzong,
Chen Alfred B.,
Mende Stephen B.,
Frey Harald U.
Publication year - 2009
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 - 10.1029/2009gl039911
Subject(s) - sprite (computer graphics) , magnetometer , lightning (connector) , satellite , physics , moment (physics) , remote sensing , scaling , meteorology , lightning strike , waveform , geology , thunderstorm , astronomy , magnetic field , computer science , voltage , geometry , mathematics , computer vision , power (physics) , classical mechanics , quantum mechanics
From July 2004 to June 2007, the FORMOSAT‐2/ISUAL spectrophotometer and Duke magnetometer observed clear optical and radio signatures of 12 sprite‐producing lightning events. In 10 of these, 777.4‐nm luminosity normalized to a distance of 3000 km was almost linearly correlated with current moment with a scaling factor of ∼0.82 MR/kAkm. This finding provides a possible new way to remotely measure lightning current moment, which is critical for understanding the production of sprites, through satellite‐based optical measurements. The remaining 2 events had anomalously large scaling factors of ∼3 and ∼8 MR/kAkm. The concurrent images showed two coincident bright cores of lightning, which suggests complex in‐cloud lightning processes may sometimes affect the optical‐radio relationship.