AE34A-02:
The Origin of Infrasonic Ionosphere Disturbances Over Tropospheric Thunderstorm
Wednesday, 17 December 2014: 4:15 PM
Xuan-Min Shao, Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, NM, United States and Erin H Lay, Los Alamos National Lab, Los Alamos, NM, United States
Abstract:
Total electron content (TEC) observations with ground-based GPS receiver network show that infrasonic disturbances as well as gravity wave variations in the ionospheric F region can be related to tropospheric thunderstorm activities [Lay et al., 2013, Geophys. Res. Lett. 40, 1945-1949]. While the propagation of gravity wave from troposphere to ionosphere is complex and nonlinear, the propagation of infrasound wave is simpler and linear. Thus, the responsible source might be determined with an array of GPS TEC observations. Knowing the source in the thunderstorm for the infrasonic disturbance will help us understand the source mechanism and the upward coupling process. In this presentation we report a new technique that is capable of geolocating the infrasonic sources by using instantaneous phase information in the TEC variations between pairs of simultaneous, spatially separated TEC measurements. It is surprising that the sources for the ionospheric infrasound disturbances are commonly traced back to the stratiform regions of the storms, indicating that stratiform region electrical discharges and the consequent high-altitude discharges (e.g., sprites) might be responsible for these disturbances.
