Relationships between lightning flash rates and radar reflectivity vertical structures in thunderstorms over the tropics and subtropics

Liu, Chuntao; Cecil, Daniel J.; Zipser, Edward J.; Kronfeld, Kevin; Robertson, Roy E.

doi:10.1029/2011jd017123

Cited by 101 publications

(162 citation statements)

References 70 publications

(77 reference statements)

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“…Liu et al (2007) observed the large areas of cold clouds over West Pacific Ocean, whereas central Africa, Argentina, and India consist deeper and more horizontally extensive PFs, and Land dominated areas consist higher 20 dBZ area above the freezing level (Liu et al, 2008). Liu et al (2012) observed the relationship between lightning flash rates and vertical structure of thunderstorms. Yuan and Qie (2008) explored the south China sea before and after the onset of the summer monsoon.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vertical Characteristics of Reflectivity in Intense Convective Clouds using TRMM PR Data

Kumar¹

2017

ENRR

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Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission Precipitation Radar (TRMM-PR) based vertical structure in intense convective precipitation is presented here for Indian and Austral summer monsoon seasons. TRMM 2A23 data is used to identify the convective echoes in PR data. Two types of cloud cells are constructed here, namely intense convective cloud (ICC) and most intense convective cloud (MICC). ICC consists of PR radar beams having Ze≥40 dBZ above 1.5 km in convective precipitation area, whereas MICC, consists of maximum reflectivity at each altitude in convective precipitation area, with at least one radar pixel must be higher than 40 dBZ or more above 1.5 km within the selected areas. We have selected 20 locations across the tropics to see the regional differences in the vertical structure of convective clouds. One of the important findings of the present study is identical behavior in the average vertical profiles in intense convective precipitation in lower troposphere across the different areas. MICCs show the higher regional differences compared to ICCs between 5-12 km altitude. Land dominated areas show higher regional differences and Southeast south America (SESA) has the strongest vertical profile (higher Ze at higher altitude) followed by Indo-Gangetic plain (IGP), Africa, north Latin America whereas weakest vertical profile occurs over Australia. Overall SESA (41%) and IGP (36%) consist higher fraction of deep convective clouds (>10 km), whereas, among the tropical oceanic areas, Western (Eastern) equatorial Indian ocean consists higher fraction of low (high) level of convective clouds. Nearly identical average vertical profiles over the tropical oceanic areas, indicate the similarity in the development of intense convective clouds and useful while considering them in model studies.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vertical Characteristics of Reflectivity in Intense Convective Clouds using TRMM PR Data

Kumar¹

2017

ENRR

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“…RPFs are features defined using the Version 7 TRMM Precipitation Radar (PR) rainfall retrieval and are required to have contiguous pixels with near-surface precipitation (as in Liu et al [2012]). For this study, to eliminate noise, we examined RPFs with at least four contiguous pixels.…”

Section: Trmm Database: Congo and Central Pacific As Archetypesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Low passive microwave brightness temperatures (37 and 85 GHz, especially) indicate the extent of ice scatterers in the column, while high maximum heights of high reflectivity (e.g., 40 dBZ) indicate the height to which graupel is lofted. Lightning flash rates are often used as a proxy for updraft speed and/or convective intensity [Nesbitt et al, 2000;Cecil et al, 2005;Zipser et al, 2006;Liu et al, 2008Liu et al, , 2012. Strong updrafts favor both graupel and supercooled liquid water in the mixed phase region, both of which are required by the widely accepted noninductive ice-ice collision mechanism of charge separation [Takahashi, 1978].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differences in size spectra of electrified storms over land and ocean

Bang

Zipser

2015

Geophysical Research Letters

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Numerous studies demonstrate the marked difference in intensity of land and ocean convection, the most pronounced being the higher frequency of intense convection and lightning over land. This study contributes to the ongoing debate of the physical reasons for this difference, through the use of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Precipitation Feature (PF) database. We demonstrate that tropical oceanic PFs with lightning tend to be over 10 times larger and more mature than those over land. This relationship is most pronounced in archetypal land and ocean regimes (Congo and Central Pacific) and is also manifested throughout the entire (35°S to 35°N) TRMM domain, to varying extents. This relationship holds true when we select for PFs with 40 dBZ echo tops over at least 5.5 km in height, which continues to be an effective proxy for convective intensity and probability of lightning.

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“…The result is net accumulation of opposite charge in different parts of the thundercloud. This has been shown to be a realistic theory through a combination of laboratory, field measurement and satellite studies (Williams, 1989;Blyth et al, 2001;Petersen et al, 2005;Saunders, 2008;Deierling et al, 2008;Liu et al, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using cloud ice flux to parametrise large-scale lightning

et al. 2014

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Abstract.Lightning is an important natural source of nitrogen oxide especially in the middle and upper troposphere. Hence, it is essential to represent lightning in chemistry transport and coupled chemistry-climate models. Using ERA-Interim meteorological reanalysis data we compare the lightning flash density distributions produced using several existing lightning parametrisations, as well as a new parametrisation developed on the basis of upward cloud ice flux at 440 hPa. The use of ice flux forms a link to the non-inductive charging mechanism of thunderstorms. Spatial and temporal distributions of lightning flash density are compared to tropical and subtropical observations for 2007-2011 from the Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite. The well-used lightning flash parametrisation based on cloud-top height has large biases but the derived annual total flash density has a better spatial correlation with the LIS observations than other existing parametrisations. A comparison of flash density simulated by the different schemes shows that the cloud-top height parametrisation has many more instances of moderate flash densities and fewer low and high extremes compared to the other parametrisations. Other studies in the literature have shown that this feature of the cloud-top height parametrisation is in contrast to lightning observations over certain regions. Our new ice flux parametrisation shows a clear improvement over all the existing parametrisations with lower root mean square errors (RMSEs) and better spatial correlations with the observations for distributions of annual total, and seasonal and interannual variations. The greatest improvement with the new parametrisation is a more realistic representation of the zonal distribution with a better balance between tropical and subtropical lightning flash estimates. The new parametrisation is appropriate for testing in chemistry transport and chemistry-climate models that use a lightning parametrisation.

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Relationships between lightning flash rates and radar reflectivity vertical structures in thunderstorms over the tropics and subtropics

Cited by 101 publications

References 70 publications

Vertical Characteristics of Reflectivity in Intense Convective Clouds using TRMM PR Data

Vertical Characteristics of Reflectivity in Intense Convective Clouds using TRMM PR Data

Differences in size spectra of electrified storms over land and ocean

Using cloud ice flux to parametrise large-scale lightning

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