Publications [#283092] of Steven A. Cummer

Papers Published

1. Adachi, T; Cummer, SA; Li, J; Takahashi, Y; Hsu, RR; Su, HT; Chen, AB; Mende, SB; Frey, HU, Estimating lightning current moment waveforms from satellite optical measurements, Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 36 no. 18 (September, 2009), American Geophysical Union (AGU), ISSN 0094-8276 [doi]
   (last updated on 2023/06/01)

   Abstract:
   From July 2004 to June 2007, the FORMOSAT-2/ ISUAL spectrophotometer and Duke magnetometer observed clear optical and radio signatures of 12 spriteproducing lightning events. In 10 of these, 777.4-nm luminosity normalized to a distance of 3000 km was almost linearly correlated with current moment with a scaling factor of ∼0.82 MR/kAkm. This finding provides a possible new way to remotely measure lightning current moment, which is critical for understanding the production of sprites, through satellite-based optical measurements. The remaining 2 events had anomalously large scaling factors of ∼3 and ∼8 MR/ kAkm. The concurrent images showed two coincident bright cores of lightning, which suggests complex in-cloud lightning processes may sometimes affect the optical-radio relationship. Copyright 2009 by the American Geophysical Union.