Environmental Analysis of Quasi-Static Electric Field Changes of Tropical Lightning Flashes

Muhammad Haziq Mohamad Sabri, Mohd Riduan Ahmad, Mona Riza Mohd Esa, Dinesh Periannan, Seah Boon York, Sulaiman Ali Mohammad, Zulkurnain Abdul-Malek, Gaopeng Lu, Hongbo Zhang, Norbayah Yusop, Vernon Cooray, Ammar Ahmed Al-Kahtani, Mohamad Zainal Abidin Ab Kadir, Norhasliza Mohd Hatta, Noradlina Abdullah, Mohd Pauzi Yahaya

Ekoloji, 2019, Issue 107, Pages: 373-378, Article No: e107013

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Abstract

The environmental conditions leading to the bouncing-wave discharge and the subsequent electron beam remain to be investigated in more detailed future studies. The analysis of quasi-static initial electric field changes (IECs) were found at the beginning of all 24 lightning flashes detected within reversal distance (22 Negative Cloud-to-Ground (–CG) and 2 normal Intra-Cloud (IC) flashes) in a tropical storm on June 15th, 2017 close to our station in Malacca, Malaysia (2.314077° N, 102.318282° E). The IECs durations averaged 4.28 ms for –CG flashes (range 1.48 to 9.45 ms) and averaged 11.30 ms for normal ICs flashes (range 7.24 to 15.35 ms). In comparison to Florida storms, the duration of IECs for –CG and IC flashes were 0.18 ms (range 0.08 to 0.33 ms) and 1.53 ms (range 0.18 to 5.70 ms), respectively. Moreover, the magnitudes of E-change for tropical thunderstorm were 0.13 V/m (range 0.03 to 0.44 V/m) for –CG flashes and -0.20 V/m (range -0.13 to -0.27 V/m) for IC flashes. The E-change magnitudes of tropical flashes are significantly larger than Florida flashes.

Keywords

breakdown pulse, cloud to ground flash, intra-cloud flash, lightning initiation, quasi-static electric field, environmental factors

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