HR: 10:20h
AN: AE42A-01 INVITED    [Abstracts]
TI: Occurrence and distribution of global TLE activities and their effects
AU: * Chen, A B
EM: alfred@phys.ncku.edu.tw
AF: Department of Physics, National Cheng-Kung University, #1 University Road, Tainan City, 70101, Taiwan
AU: * Chen, A B
EM: alfred@phys.ncku.edu.tw
AF: Plasma and Space Science Center, National Cheng-Kung University, #1 University Road, Tainan City, 70101, Taiwan
AU: Kuo, C
EM: johnny@phys.ncku.edu.tw
AF: Department of Physics, National Cheng-Kung University, #1 University Road, Tainan City, 70101, Taiwan
AU: Kuo, C
EM: johnny@phys.ncku.edu.tw
AF: Institute of Space Science, National Central University, 300 Jhongda Road, Jhongli, 32001, Taiwan
AU: Lee, Y
EM: yjlee@phys.ncku.edu.tw
AF: Department of Physics, National Cheng-Kung University, #1 University Road, Tainan City, 70101, Taiwan
AU: Hsu, R
EM: rrhsu@phys.ncku.edu.tw
AF: Department of Physics, National Cheng-Kung University, #1 University Road, Tainan City, 70101, Taiwan
AU: Su, H
EM: htsu@phys.ncku.edu.tw
AF: Department of Physics, National Cheng-Kung University, #1 University Road, Tainan City, 70101, Taiwan
AU: Chern, J
EM: jlchern@faculty.nctu.edu.tw
AF: Department of Photonics, National Chiao-Tung University, 1001 Ta-Hsueh Road, Hsinchu City, 30010, Taiwan
AU: Frey, H U
EM: hfrey@ssl.berkeley.edu
AF: Space Science Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, 7 Gauss Way, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-7450, United States
AU: Mende, S B
EM: mende@ssl.berkeley.edu
AF: Space Science Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, 7 Gauss Way, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-7450, United States
AU: Fukunishi, H
EM: fuku@pat.geophys.tohoku.ac.jp
AF: Department of Geophysics, Tohoku University, Aramaki, Aoba-ku, Sendai, 980-8578, Japan
AU: Takahashi, Y
EM: yukihiro@pat.geophys.tohoku.ac.jp
AF: Department of Geophysics, Tohoku University, Aramaki, Aoba-ku, Sendai, 980-8578, Japan
AU: Liu, T
EM: tie@nspo.org.tw
AF: National Space Organization, 8F, 9, Prosperity 1st Road, Science-Based Industrial Park, Hsinchu City, 30078, Taiwan
AU: Chang, Y
EM: yschang@nspo.org.tw
AF: National Space Organization, 8F, 9, Prosperity 1st Road, Science-Based Industrial Park, Hsinchu City, 30078, Taiwan
AU: Lee, L
EM: loulee@ncu.edu.tw
AF: Institute of Space Science, National Central University, 300 Jhongda Road, Jhongli, 32001, Taiwan
AB: During the 3-year survey of ISUAL experiment on the FORMOSAT-2 satellite, thousands of TLEs including sprites, elves, halos and jets have been recorded. The most dominated type (~80%) of TLEs was recognized as elves, and only 20% of the recorded events are sprites and halos. In addition, ISUAL also recorded 13 gigantic jets during this time span. Distributions of the ISUAL TLEs show that sprites congregate mainly over continents as lightning does, whereas elves scatter mostly over oceans. The global occurrence rates of TLEs are also derived. However, a detailed study of the peak CG current distribution and the ISUAL imager detection threshold indicates that only around 1% CG lightning are able to generate ISUAL detectable elves. The true occurrence rates of TLEs could range from a factor of two to an order magnitude higher than detected rates. The strong dependency of elve occurrence on the sea surface temperature, updraft flow of global atmosphere circulation, and precipitation implies that the warm tropical oceans act as the heat reservoirs to drive vertical convection and accelerate charge accumulation by rainfall, thus produce intense oceanic lightnings, which induce a large fraction of observed elves. This process suggests that oceans, atmosphere and ionosphere are coupled. Sprites and jets are able to transport electrons between thunderclouds and lower ionosphere, and elves contribute substantial free electrons and ions at ~90km height from EMP-heated ionization. In this presentation we also discuss the role of TLE in the global circuit and atmospheric chemistry quantitatively.
DE: 3304 Atmospheric electricity
DE: 3311 Clouds and aerosols
DE: 3324 Lightning
DE: 3354 Precipitation (1854)
DE: 4954 Sea surface temperature
SC: Atmospheric and Space Electricity [AE]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting