Observations of Blue Discharges Associated With Negative Narrow Bipolar Events in Active Deep Convection

On 19 August 2012, the Imager of Sprites and Upper Atmospheric Lightning on board the FORMOSAT-2 satellite captured a sequence of seven blue discharges within 1 min that emanated from a parent thunderstorm over Lake Taihu in East China. The analysis of lightning activity produced in the thunderstorm indicates that at least six of these events occurred in association with negative narrow bipolar events (NBEs) that were concurrent with the blue discharge by less than 1 ms, and negative cloud-to-ground occurred within 6 s before each blue discharge, which is in agreement with the modeling presented by Krehbiel et al. (2008). Therefore, the frequent occurrence of negative cloud-to-ground could provide the favorable condition for the production of blue discharges, and negative NBEs are probably the initial event of blue discharges. The detection of negative NBEs might provide a convenient approach to detect the occurrence of blue discharges as lightning bolt shooting upward from the top of energetic thunderstorms.

Duke Scholars

Author Steven A. Cummer Electrical and Computer Engineering