Upward electrical discharges from thunderstorms
@article{Krehbiel2007UpwardED, title={Upward electrical discharges from thunderstorms}, author={Paul R. Krehbiel and Jeremy A. Riousset and Victor P. Pasko and Ronald J. Thomas and William Rison and Mark A. Stanley and Harald E. Edens}, journal={Nature Geoscience}, year={2007}, volume={1}, pages={233-237} }
Blue jets, gigantic jets, cloud-to-cloud discharges and cloud-to-ground lightning are all electrical discharges from thunderclouds. An analysis of numerical simulations and observations of these phenomena places them all in a unifying framework. Thunderstorms occasionally produce upward discharges, called blue jets and gigantic jets, that propagate out of the storm top towards or up to the ionosphere1,2,3,4. Whereas the various types of intracloud and cloud-to-ground lightning are reasonably…
205 Citations
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Blue jets are lightning-like, atmospheric electric discharges of several hundred millisecond duration that fan into cones as they propagate from the top of thunderclouds into the stratosphere1. They…
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- 2011
[1] Thunderstorm clouds may discharge directly to the ionosphere in spectacular luminous jets – the largest electric discharges of our planet. The properties of these “giants,” such as their…
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Meteorological and Electrical Conditions of Two Mid‐latitude Thunderstorms Producing Blue Discharges
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Blue discharges are one type of rarely observed upward discharge emerging from the top of thunderstorms. The favorable meteorological conditions and charge structures needed to produce this marvelous…
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Upward propagation of gigantic jets revealed by 3D radio and optical mapping.
- Physics, Environmental ScienceScience advances
- 2022
Occasionally, lightning will exit the top of a thunderstorm and connect to the lower edge of space, forming a gigantic jet. Here, we report on observations of a negative gigantic jet that transferred…
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Blue electric streamer discharges in the upper reaches of thunderclouds are observed as flashes of 337.0 nm (blue) with faint or no emissions of 777.4 nm (red). Analyzing 3 years of measurements by…
Gigantic jet discharges evolve stepwise through the middle atmosphere
- Physics, Environmental ScienceNature Communications
- 2019
The first such images are reported, showing a step-wise evolution of gigantic jets during their rising phase, as magnetic field signals tracking the charge transfer and optical Geostationary Lightning Mapper data are matched unambiguously to the precisely timed final jump process in a gigantic jet.
Profuse activity of blue electrical discharges at the tops of thunderstorms
- Environmental Science, Physics
- 2017
Thunderstorm clouds may reach the lower stratosphere, affecting the exchange of greenhouse gases between the troposphere and stratosphere. This region of the atmosphere is difficult to access…
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