Relationship between Narrow Bipolar Events and Radar Echo in Southwest China

LIU Shasha; DONG Wansheng; WU Ting; LIU Hengyi

doi:10.7522/j.issn.1000-0534.2013.00178

Plateau Meteorology >

2014 , Vol. 33 >Issue 3: 801 - 810

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7522/j.issn.1000-0534.2013.00178

Relationship between Narrow Bipolar Events and Radar Echo in Southwest China

LIU Shasha ,
DONG Wansheng ,
WU Ting ,
LIU Hengyi

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Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing 100081, China;2. Division of Electrical, Electronic and Information Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, Osaka 565-0871, Japan

Received date: 2013-07-24

Online published: 2014-06-28

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Abstract

A very low frequency and low frequency (VLF/LF) lightning location network has been established since 2010 in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing, which consists of 11 stations of fast electric field change meters. Using this system, the distinct class of intracloud lightning discharges named NBEs (Narrow Bipolar Events) are recorded. Six thunderstorm cases are used to analyze the relationship between NBEs and thunderstorm convective strength. Every storm produced NBEs of both polarities, and one of them produced more negative NBEs than positive ones, which is a very rare case. Our study statistically compare NBEs rates to the Doppler radar-inferred proxies of convective strength. It is concluded that although NBE rates show much weaker dependence on the volume of 40 dBZ radar reflectivity (V₄₀) than ordinary lightning, they increase rapidly with the increased V₄₀ and largely occur in high V₄₀ area, especially for negative NBEs. The spatiotemporal relation of positive and negative NBEs to thunderstorm convection is also investigated. Compared with positive NBEs, the negative NBEs cluster more closely in time and space, they generally occur in the strongest development stage of the thunderstorm, largely clustering at the cloud top of the core of deepest convection. It seems that a very vigorous thunderstorm tends to produce more negative NBEs. Positive NBEs are scattered around the convective cores. These results indicate that negative NBEs are closely related to the deep convection, which is useful and meaningful to indicate thunderstorm convective strength.

Key words： Narrow bipolar event; Ordinary lightning; Radar echo; Thunderstorm convect

Cite this article

LIU Shasha , DONG Wansheng , WU Ting , LIU Hengyi . Relationship between Narrow Bipolar Events and Radar Echo in Southwest China[J]. Plateau Meteorology, 2014 , 33(3) : 801 -810 . DOI: 10.7522/j.issn.1000-0534.2013.00178

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