Monday, November 25

We'll be using page 161, page 162, page 163a, page 163b, page 164a, and page 164b.

 Lightning
Data collected in the past 30 years indicate that lightning kills about 50 people every year in the United States (floods kill about 80 people per year, tornadoes about 70 people per year and hurricanes about 50 people per year).  Lightning is the cause of about 30% of all power outages. 

In the western United States, lightning starts about half of all forest fires.  Lightning caused fires are a particular problem at the beginning of the thunderstorm season in Arizona.  At this time the air underneath thunderstorms is still relatively dry.  Rain falling from a thunderstorm will often evaporate before reaching the ground (virga).  Lightning then strikes dry ground, starts a fire, and there isn't any rain to put out or at least slow the spread of the fire.  This is so called dry lightning.  Strong downdraft winds from the thunderstorm can "fan the fire" and help the fire grow and spread.

1.  What produces the electrical charge needed for lightning?
The short answer is collisions between precipitation particles in the cloud (collisions between graupel and snow crystals)



For reasons that are still not completely understood initially uncharged particles become charged during the collision.  The charge production takes place in the middle, mixed phase region, of the cloud.  Mostly the ice crystals become positively charged and are carried up to the top part of the cloud.  The negatively charged graupel particles form a layer of negative charge in the middle part of the cloud.  The are also smaller pockets of positive charge found below the layer of negative charge.  The distribution of charge in a thunderstorm is shown in the figure below.
2.  The 4 different types of lightning
Note the distribution of positive and negative charge in the cloud (and in the ground under the thunderstorm)



We'll be concerned with the lightning produced by thunderstorms.  There are 4 main types of lightning.  Intracloud lightning is the most common type (2/3 to 3/4 of all lightning discharges, sometimes more).  Negative cloud-to-ground is the next most common type (~1/4 to 1/3).  Positive cloud-to-ground lightning accounts for a few percent of cloud-to-ground lightning.  Upward lightning is pretty rare and "needs some help" such as a mountain or tall building in order to occur.   Photographs of a negative cloud-to-ground flash and an upward lightning discharge are shown below. 













Cloud to ground lightning with downward branching (source of this photo)
 An upward lightning discharge initiated by the Eiffel Tower in Paris.  At the top of the photograph you can see that the branching points upward.  Photographed by Hakim Atek, source of this photo


Lightning has also been observed in dust storms and volcanic eruptions such as in these otherworldly pictures of the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland.  And these more recent pictures from the Calbuco volcano in Chile.
 
A couple of interesting things can happen at the ground under a thunderstorm.  Attraction between positive charge in the ground and the layer of negative charge in the cloud can become strong enough that a person's hair will literally stand on end (see two photos below).  This is incidentally a very dangerous situation to be in; I wouldn't wait around for my picture to be taken.  I recently stumbled upon an article that described the circumstances under which the photographs below were taken. 


Michael McQuilken is shown at far right next to his brother Sean.  Their sister Mary is shown in the left photo.  All three were on top of Moro Rock in Sequoia National Park in California.  Sean was struck by lightning but survived.  Another man in the area was struck and killed by lightning.  An elevated exposed location like this is a very dangerous place to be during a thunderstorm.


St. Elmo's Fire (corona discharge) is a faint electrical discharge that sometimes develops at the tops of elevated objects during thunderstorms.  St. Elmo's fire was first observed coming from the tall masts of sailing ships at sea (St. Elmo is the patron saint of sailors).  Sailors in those days were often very superstitious and I suspect they found St. Elmo's fire pretty terrifying.


3. Cloud to ground lightning - the stepped leader, upward discharge, and 1st return stroke
A cloud to ground lightning flash is actually a sequence of several separate events.


Most cloud to ground discharges begin with a negatively-charged downward-moving stepped leader.  A developing channel makes its way down toward the cloud in 50 m jumps that occur every 50 millionths of a second or so.  Every jump produces a short flash of light (think of a strobe light dropped from an airplane that flashes on and off as it falls toward the ground).  The sketch below shows what you'd see if you were able to photograph the stepped leader on moving film.  Every 50 microseconds or so you'd get a new picture of a slightly longer channel displaced slightly on the film (the flash of light would come from the highlighted segments would be captured on film).
 
Here's an actual slow motion movie (video not film) of a stepped leader (its the second video on the page).  The video camera used here was able to collect 7207 images per second ( a normal video camera takes 30 images per second).  The images were then replayed at a slower rate.  1/8 of a second of lightning is stretched out to about 30 seconds on the video. 

Here is a larger collection of slow motion video of the stepped leader process that begins negative cloud-to-ground lightning discharges (a windshield wiper moves across the image every so often and gives you an idea of how much the video has been slowed down).

As the leader channel approaches the ground strong electrical attraction develops between negative charge in the leader channel and positive charge on the surface of the ground.  Several  positively charged sparks develop and move upward toward the stepped leader.  One of these will intercept the stepped leader and close the connection between negative charge in the cloud and positive charge on the ground.



Here's a sketch of one of the best photographs ever taken of an upward connecting discharge (the actual image is copyrighted so I can't stick it in the ClassNotes).



You can see the actual photograph on the photographers homepage.  There were at least 3 upward discharges initiated by the approach of the stepped leader (1, 2, and 3 in the sketch).  Streamer 1 connected to the bottom of the stepped leader.  It isn't clear where the exact junction point was, perhaps at the point where the channel bends indicated with the red arrow.  The downward branching at Point 4 indicates that was part of the descending stepped leader.  A very faint upward discharge can be seen at Point 3.  Here's another more recent photograph (click on Galleries on the bar near the top of the page, then click on Lightning Gallery 1).  We'll learn later in the class that a lightning flash often consists of several strikes to the ground that occur in less than 1 second.  You can clearly see separate ground strikes in this photo.  And finally probably the most recent photograph was taken by Mike Olbinski.  You'll find the photograph in a paper presented in 2016 at an international conference on lightning detection.

4. Lightning rods
Lightning rods (invented by Benjamin Franklin) make use of the upward connecting discharge.



Houses with and without lightning rods are shown above.  When lightning strikes the house without a lightning rod at left the powerful return stroke travels into the house destroying the TV and possibly starting the house on fire.  With a lightning rod, an upward discharge launched off the top of the lightning rod intercepts the stepped leader and safely carries the lightning current through a thick wire around the house and into the ground.  Lightning rods do work and they have changed little since their initial development in the 1700s.  Most of the newer buildings on campus are protected with lightning rods.  If you look carefully at the roof of Old Main, which was recently remodeled, you'll see lightning rods.

The connection between the stepped leader and the upward discharge creates a "short circuit" between the charge in the cloud and the charge in the ground.





A powerful current travels back up the channel from the ground toward the cloud.  This is the 1st return stroke.  Large currents (typically 30,000 amps in this 1st return stroke) heat the air to around 30,000K (5 times hotter than the surface of the sun which is 6000 K) which causes the air to explode.  When you hear thunder, you are hearing the sound produced by this explosion.

The figure below summarizes what we've covered so far in simplified form

Does lightning travel upward or downward?  The answer is it does both.  It starts with a downward leader than is followed by an upward moving return stroke.

Many cloud-to-ground flashes end at this point.  In about 50% of cloud to ground discharges, the stepped leader-upward discharge-return stroke sequence repeats itself (multiple times) with a few subtle differences.  That's covered below.

5. Multiple strokes flashes - dart leaders and subsequent return strokes

A downward dart leader travels from the cloud to the ground. The dart leader doesn't step but travels smoothly and follows the channel created by the stepped leader (avoiding the branches).  It is followed by a slightly less powerful subsequent return stroke that travels back up the channel to the cloud.  This second stroke might be followed by a third, a fourth, and so on.  The subsequent return stroke channel usually doesn't have branches.


Here's a stepped leader-upward connecting discharge-return stroke animation (you'll see the stepped leader, upward discharges, and the first return stroke.  Two additional subsequent strokes are shown without the dart leader).

The sketch above and the photo below show a multiple stroke flash consisting of 4 separate return strokes. There is enough time between separate return strokes (around 1/20th to 1/10th of a second) that your eye can separate the individual flashes of light.  Separate return strokes cause the flickering you sometimes see when looking at lightning.







6. Positive (cloud-to-ground) lightning


We've been looking at strikes that originate in the negative charge center is a thunderstorm (discharge at left in figure above).  Occasionally a lightning stroke will travel from the positive charge region in the top of the thunderstorm cloud to ground (shown at right in the figure above).  These types of strikes are more common at the ends of storms and in winter storms.  This is probably because the top part of the cloud gets pushed sideways away from the middle and bottom portions of the cloud.  Positive strokes are very powerful.  They sometimes produce an unusually loud and long-lasting clap of thunder.

7. Upward lightning


A very nice picture of an upward lightning initiated by Freedom Tower in New York City.  The photo was taken from the Empire State Building (source of this image).

Here's an even rarer form of lightning.  Lightning sometimes starts at the ground and travels upward.  Upward lightning is generally only initiated by mountains and tall objects such as a skyscraper or a tower of some kind (the Empire State Building is struck many times every year, it's usually lightning that the building itself initiated; some very early studies of lightning were carried out there). 

Note the discharge is different in another way also.  These discharges are initiated by an upward leader.  This is not followed by a return stroke, like you might expect, but by a more normal downward leader.  Once the 2nd leader reaches the ground, an upward return stroke travels back up the channel to the cloud.

8. Rocket triggered lightning
The fact that lightning could begin with an upward discharge that begins at the ground led (French) scientists to develop a technique to trigger lightning by firing a small rocket up toward a thunderstorm.  The rocket is connected by a thin wire to the ground.  When the rocket gets 50 to 100 m above the ground an upward streamer will develop off of the top of the wire.  Once the streamer reaches the cloud it can initiate a "normal" series of downward dart leaders and upward subsequent return strokes.
Photograph of a triggered lightning discharge taken from a few 100 meters away.  The straight part of the channel is where the discharge followed the wire.  The lightning channel becomes much more jagged when traveling through air above the wire.  (source of this photo)
 A closeup of triggered lightning striking the launch tower.  The green portion of the image at left is produced by heating and vaporization of the copper wire used to trigger the discharge.   The brighter whiter strokes of lightning are seen at right.  They have been spread across the picture by wind.  Photo credit: Doug Jordan and Martin Uman International Center for Lightning Research and Testing


Scientists are able to take closeup photographs and make measurements of lightning currents using triggered lightning.  Triggered lightning can also be used to test the operation of lightning protection devices. 

Here's a link to the video that was showed in class.

The abbreviation NLDN that you'll see at the start of the video stands for National Lightning Detection Network.  The headquarters of this company is located here in Tucson.

In the first 1:30 of the video you'll see natural lightning occurring in the Tucson area during the summer (both intracloud and cloud to ground discharges).  Look for the flickering that means multiple return strokes in a flash.

Between 1:30 and about 2:00 you'll see lightning activity photographed at the Grand Canyon.  Lightning at the Grand Canyon preferentially strikes the edges of the canyon, a location to avoid if you're there during a thunderstorm.

Next, between about 2:00 and 2:40 photographs of lightning striking large wind turbines in Kansas.  A lightning strike to one of the turbine blades can cause damage that is very expensive to repair.  At 2:16 and again at about 2:24 you'll see very bright lightning flashes that momentarily overexpose the video.  These were probably positive cloud to ground discharges.  And look carefully at the discharge that occurs between about 2:28 and 2:31 on the video.  Notice the upward pointing branching.  This was an upward discharge initiated by one of the wind turbines.

Starting about 2:50 and for the remainder of the video you'll see some rocket triggered lightning.  These experiments were done at the International Center for Lightning Research and Testing (ICLRT) run by the University of Florida near Gainesville, FL.

The green glow that you might have noticed in some of the triggered lightning video probably comes from vaporization of the copper wire that is carried upward by the rocket.  If you're someone that enjoys watching lightning storms you may remember having seen a similar green glow when lightning strikes the ground.  I suspect this is caused by a strike to a transformer on an electric power pole.  The copper wire in the transformer is vaporized by the lightning.


9. Fulgurites










When lightning strikes the ground it will often melt the soil (especially sandy soil) and leave behind a rootlike structure called a fulgurite.  A fulgurite is just a narrow (1/2 to 1 inch across) segment of melted sand (glass).  The photographs of fulgurites above were found at the University of Florida lightning triggering site. 


10. Lightning safety
Lightning is a serious weather hazard.  Here are some lightning safety rules that you should keep in mind during thundery weather.

 

Stay away from tall isolated objects during a lightning storm.  You can be hurt or killed just by being close to a lightning strike even if you're not struck directly.  Lightning currents often travel outward along the surface of the ground (or in water) rather than going straight down into the ground.  Just being close to something struck by lightning puts you at risk.  When you hear of someone being struck by lightning and living to tell about it, it was often a nearby rather than a direct strike. 

An automobile with a metal roof and body provides good protection from lightning.  Many people think this is because the tires insulate the car from the ground.  But the real reason cars are safe is that the lightning current will travel through the metal and around the passengers inside.  The rubber tires really don't play any role at all.  The people in Florida in the video that were triggering lightning with rockets were inside a metal trailer and were perfectly safe.  All of the connections made to equipment outside the trailer were done using fiber optics, there were no metal wires entering or leaving the trailer. 






You shouldn't use a corded phone or electrical appliances during a lightning storm because lightning currents can follow wires into your home.  Cordless phones and cell phones are safe.  It is also a good idea to stay away from plumbing as much as possible (don't take a shower during a lightning storm, for example).  Vent pipes are connected to the plumbing and go up to the roof of the house which puts them in a perfect location to be struck by lightning.

To estimate the distance to a lightning strike count the number of seconds between the flash of light and when you first hear the thunder.  Divide this by 5 to get the distance in miles. 


For example, a delay of 15 seconds between the flash of light and the sound of thunder would mean the discharge was 3 miles away.  Research studies have shown that about 95% of cloud to ground discharges strike the ground within 5 miles of a point directly below the center of the storm.  That's a 10 mile diameter circle and covers the area of a medium size city.

The latest lightning safety recommendation is the 30/30 Rule.

 

The 30/30 rule
People should seek shelter if the delay between a lightning flash and its  thunder is 30 seconds or less
(the lightning is within 6 miles).

People should remain under cover until 30 minutes after the final clap of thunder.  The powerful positive strokes often occur at the ends of thunderstorms.

Transient luminous events (TLEs)
I doubt there is anyone in the room that hasn't seen lightning.   But I suspect you've never heard of and haven't seen a "sprite" or a "blue jet."  These are two types of transient luminous events (TLEs) that occur in the upper atmosphere above thunderstorms.  This is a topic I don't usually mention in this class because we are usually running short of time at this point in the semester.



This is a figure from a Wikipedia article on Upper-Atmospheric Lightning (photo credit: Abestrobi [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]).  Sprites and blue jets aren't really lightning.  They are produced or induced by the electromagnetic radiation emitted by lightning and thunderstorms. 

Here are some of my favorite still pictures of sprites
Mike Hollingshead (Astronomy Picture of the Day)
A hard to spot sprite viewed from the International Space Station (ISS Expedition 31 crew, NASA)
sprite (National Geographic) (click here if the link is slow to respond), see also the accompanying article.
sprite (WDRB.com)
sprite (Weatherscapes)
https://www.instagram.com/p/BPXXv6TjCYk/?utm_content=buffer70320&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Sprites are dim and hard to see with the naked eye.  Here are some suggestions that will improve your chances of observing one (adapted from http://elf.gi.alaska.edu/#intro; this site at the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks may no longer be available):

To see a sprite you need an unobstructed view of the region above an active thunderstorm.  The best viewing distance is about 100 - 200 miles from a storm.

The dark adapted eye most readily sees sprites in parfoveal vision (looking out the corner of your eye (rods) rather than looking directly at the sprite (cones which respond better to colors)).

It must be very dark, no city light, no twilight.  Cloud illumination from lightning activity may be too bright or may be distracting.

Sprites are very brief (3-10 ms usually).  They are produced by only about 1% of lightning strokes.

Here are some still photographs of blue jets
blue jet (PBS Nova)
blue jet photographed above a thunderstorm in the Northern Territory, Australia (Thijs Bors published in The Telegraph)
blue jet on St. Barth (credit: Elka Liot, Muskapix Gregory Moulard.  "St. Barth" refers to Saint Barthelemy a French Overseas Collectivite Territoriale in the Caribbean.  Together with Saint Martin, Guadeloupe, and Martinique it is part of the French West Indies)