Electrical discharge from a thundercloud top to the lower ionosphere

Victor P. Pasko (), Mark A. Stanley (), John D. Mathews, Umran S. Inan and Troy G. Wood
Additional contact information
Victor P. Pasko: CSSL Laboratory, Penn State University
Mark A. Stanley: Langmuir Laboratory, New Mexico Tech
John D. Mathews: CSSL Laboratory, Penn State University
Umran S. Inan: STAR Laboratory, Stanford University
Troy G. Wood: STAR Laboratory, Stanford University

Nature, 2002, vol. 416, issue 6877, 152-154

Abstract: Abstract For over a century, numerous undocumented reports have appeared about unusual large-scale luminous phenomena above thunderclouds1,2,3,4,5,6 and, more than 80 years ago, it was suggested that an electrical discharge could bridge the gap between a thundercloud and the upper atmosphere7,8. Since then, two classes of vertically extensive optical flashes above thunderclouds have been identified—sprites9,10,11 and blue jets12,13,14. Sprites initiate near the base of the ionosphere, develop very rapidly downwards at speeds which can exceed 107 m s-1 (ref. 15), and assume many different geometrical forms16,17,18,19. In contrast, blue jets develop upwards from cloud tops at speeds of the order of 105 m s-1 and are characterized by a blue conical shape12,13,14. But no experimental data related to sprites or blue jets have been reported which conclusively indicate that they establish a direct path of electrical contact between a thundercloud and the lower ionosphere. Here we report a video recording of a blue jet propagating upwards from a thundercloud to an altitude of about 70 km, taken at the Arecibo Observatory, Puerto Rico. Above an altitude of 42 km—normally the upper limit for blue jets and the lower terminal altitude for sprites—the flash exhibited some features normally observed in sprites. As we observed this phenomenon above a relatively small thunderstorm cell, we speculate that it may be common and therefore represent an unaccounted for component of the global electric circuit.

Date: 2002
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/416152a Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:416:y:2002:i:6877:d:10.1038_416152a

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/416152a

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().