The global distributions, occurrence rates and climatology of transient luminous events by a 12-year space-borne survey
Abstract
The ISUAL (Imager of sprites and upper atmospheric lightning) experiment onboard the FORMOSAT-2 satellite is the first space mission devoted to the global transient luminous events (TLEs) survey. In the 12-year mission, ISUAL observations scanned 45-deg south to 25-deg north latitude during the northern summer and 25-deg south to 45-deg north latitude during the northern winter. 40,558 TLE events, including 31,561 elves, 2636 sprites, 2203 halos, 5876 blue jets/starters, and 127 gigantic jets were registered accordingly. In addition to updating the global distributions and occurrence rates of three main types of TLEs published in 2008, the occurrence of blue jets is first reported, and the its abundance is surprisingly recognized as the second dominant type of TLEs. With this long-term global monitoring, it is also the first time to explore the climatology and seasonal variation of TLEs. The results indicate that the seasonal occurrence rates of specific types of TLEs manifest an increasing trend, and may associated with the severe weather, or global temperature anomalies, but other types can not find a similar feature.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFMAE23A..04C
- Keywords:
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- 3304 Atmospheric electricity;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES;
- 3324 Lightning;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES;
- 3394 Instruments and techniques;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES