Comparison of lighting activity and inner radiation belt particle fluxes perturbations
Abstract
Lightning discharges are known to inject whistlers into the inner magnetosphere over a wide range of latitudes around their source. When a discharge occurs, it radiates electromagnetic energy, some of which propagates in the whistler-mode wave through the ionospheric plasma travelling away from the Earth. Previous studies have discussed the effects of whistler-induced electron precipitation and radiation belt losses associated with lightning but there has been little research on the long term effects of these precipitation on the inner radiation belts [Rodger et al. (2004), Clilverd et al. (2004)].Here, we use data from the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN), which has continuously monitored global lightning since 2004, to examine one year of lightning data and locate the L-shells with high lighting activity. We use Van Allen Probes' Energetic Particle, Composition, and Thermal Plasma Suite (ECT) from both satellites (RBSP-A/B) to measure electron fluxes in the inner radiation belt at the L-shells of interest. We compare these fluxes to a globally-integrated count of lightning strikes and investigate the relationship between global lightning occurrence and RBSP electron fluxes. We examine several factors, such as different energy ranges, timescales ranging from a few weeks to the entire year and seasonal changes in order to quantify the loss process driven by lightning in the inner radiation belts.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2016
- Bibcode:
- 2016AGUFMSM41A2414M
- Keywords:
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- 2730 Magnetosphere: inner;
- MAGNETOSPHERIC PHYSICSDE: 2740 Magnetospheric configuration and dynamics;
- MAGNETOSPHERIC PHYSICSDE: 2774 Radiation belts;
- MAGNETOSPHERIC PHYSICS