Effects of charge and electrostatic potential on lightning propagation

Abstract

[1] Three-dimensional lightning mapping observations are compared to cloud charge structures and electric potential profiles inferred from balloon soundings of electric field in New Mexico mountain thunderstorms. For six individual intracloud and cloud-to-ground flashes and for a sequence of 36 flashes in one storm, the comparisons consistently show good agreement between the altitudes of horizontal lightning channels and the altitudes of electric potential extrema or wells. Lightning flashes appear to deposit charge of opposite polarity in relatively localized volumes within the preexisting lower positive, midlevel negative, and upper positive charge regions associated with the potential wells. The net effect of recurring lightning charge deposition at the approximate levels of potential extrema is to increase the complexity in the observed storm charge structure. The midlevel breakdown of both normal intracloud flashes and negative cloud-to-ground flashes is observed to be segregated by flash type into the upper and lower parts of the deep potential well associated with the midlevel negative charge. The segregation is consistent with perturbations observed in the bottom of the negative potential well due to embedded positive charge that was probably deposited by earlier flashes. It is also consistent with an expected tendency for vertical breakdown to begin branching horizontally before reaching the local potential minimum. The joint observations reconcile the apparent dichotomy between the complex charge structures often inferred from balloon soundings through storms and the simpler structures often inferred from lightning measurements.

Transient luminous events above two mesoscale convective systems: Storm structure and evolution

“…Relative distribution of VHF sources with altitude also was used to help identify charge layers. This technique shows good agreement with charge distributions inferred from balloonborne electric field soundings [Coleman et al, 2003;MacGorman et al, 2008], and it has been successfully applied by other researchers Lang and Rutledge, 2008] to infer physically reasonable gross charge distributions in thunderstorms. Due to the large number of flashes in this MCS, charge was sorted only for select flashes.…”

Fine‐resolution simulation of the channel structures and propagation features of intracloud lightning

“…[11] The Studies of Electrical Evolution in Thunderstorms (SEET) were conducted in July and August of 1999 in the mountains of central New Mexico [Coleman et al, 2003]. A thunderstorm event (SEET case) on 31 July of SEET was chosen for simulation.…”

“…The conclusions presented by Coleman et al [2003], drawn from 3D IC flash maps and electric field profiles, enable us to verify simulation results and to investigate relations between flash propagation and space charge and electric potential distributions. In this paper, we first describe the numerical simulation method.…”

Asymmetries in bidirectional leader development of lightning flashes

“…[53] An interesting observation was made by Coleman et al [2003], where vertical potential profiles were compared with leader growth altitudes. The LMA-detected recoil sources were located in the upper half of the midlevel negative potential well for +IC flashes, and in the lower half of the same well for ÀIC flashes (we confirm this altitude difference of recoil sources also in Ebro LMA data).…”

“…According to Coleman et al [2003], positive leaders of +IC flashes move into the upper half of the negative charge layer (more precisely, negative potential well), while positive leaders of ÀIC/ÀCG flashes move into the lower half. So they should on average actually be somewhat lower than in +IC flashes, which is easily confirmed when looking at subsequent flashes within individual storms.…”