Electrostatic Changes Observed with Narrow Bipolar Pulses

Abstract:

Narrow bipolar pulses (NBPs) or compact intracloud discharges are impulsive discharges that are considered to be the strongest natural emitters in the HF radio band; they usually occur at high altitudes in some thunderstorms. In the summer of 2011, we collected E-change data with wideband flat-plate antennas (0.16 Hz – 2.5 MHz) at ten stations covering an area of nearly 70 km x 100 km in and around Kennedy Space Center, Florida, USA. On one thunderstorm day, 14 August 2011, we detected 226 positive NBPs, and some observations of these pulses were published in Karunarathne et al. [2015, JGR-atmospheres]. Of these 226 NBPs, 50 (22.1 %) occurred within 10 km horizontally of at least one sensor. All of these closer sensors show electrostatic changes associated with corresponding NBPs, with a net electrostatic change in the main bipolar pulse and with a slower electrostatic change after the bipolar pulse that seems similar to short continuing current immediately after some cloud-to-ground return strokes. Although NBPs have been considered as short duration pulses (10 – 20 microseconds), the electrostatic changes after the main bipolar pulse ranged from 0.7 ms to 34 ms and associated charge moments were calculated. The total duration of the electrostatic E-change was strongly dependent on the distance to the sensors. In this presentation, we will present data for these electrostatic changes, some statistics, and physical background and reasoning for the electrostatic changes.