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Measurements and implications of the relationship between lightning and terrestrial gamma ray flashes
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA
Physics Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, California, USA
Astronomy Department, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA
Space and Remote Sensing Sciences Group, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA
We report observations and analysis of 30 kHz radio emissions (sferics) from lightning discharges associated with 26 terrestrial gamma ray flashes (TGFs) recorded by the RHESSI satellite over the Caribbean and Americas, between 1500 and 4000 km away from the magnetic field sensors located at Duke University. Thirteen of the TGFs are found to occur within −3/+1 ms of lightning discharges of positive polarity from the direction of the RHESSI subsatellite point, strongly indicating that the TGFs are linked to these discharges. The event timing and sferic direction finding reveals that the discharges occur within a ∼300 km radius circle around the RHESSI subsatellite point. Although the positive polarity of all 13 discharges is consistent with runaway breakdown, the lightning charge moment changes are approximately two orders of magnitude smaller than present high altitude runaway breakdown theory predicts. Implications of these measurements are discussed.
Received 21 February 2005; accepted 1 April 2005; published 30 April 2005.
Citation: (2005), Measurements and implications of the relationship between lightning and terrestrial gamma ray flashes, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L08811, doi:10.1029/2005GL022778.
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