da Silva Caitano L, Salazar Sophia D, Brum Christiano G M, Terra Pedrina
Department of Physics and Langmuir Lab, New Mexico Tech, Socorro, NM, USA.
Arecibo Observatory and University of Central Florida, Arecibo, PR, USA.
Sci Rep. 2021 May 13;11(1):10250. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-89662-x.
Optical observations of transient luminous events and remote-sensing of the lower ionosphere with low-frequency radio waves have demonstrated that thunderstorms and lightning can have substantial impacts in the nighttime ionospheric D region. However, it remains a challenge to quantify such effects in the daytime lower ionosphere. The wealth of electron density data acquired over the years by the Arecibo Observatory incoherent scatter radar (ISR) with high vertical spatial resolution (300-m in the present study), combined with its tropical location in a region of high lightning activity, indicate a potentially transformative pathway to address this issue. Through a systematic survey, we show that daytime sudden electron density changes registered by Arecibo's ISR during thunderstorm times are on average different than the ones happening during fair weather conditions (driven by other external factors). These changes typically correspond to electron density depletions in the D and E region. The survey also shows that these disturbances are different than the ones associated with solar flares, which tend to have longer duration and most often correspond to an increase in the local electron density content.
对瞬态发光事件的光学观测以及利用低频无线电波对低层电离层进行遥感探测表明，雷暴和闪电会对夜间电离层D区产生重大影响。然而，要量化白天低层电离层中的此类影响仍然是一项挑战。多年来，阿雷西博天文台非相干散射雷达（ISR）以高垂直空间分辨率（本研究中为300米）获取了大量电子密度数据，再加上其位于闪电活动频繁地区的热带位置，这表明了解决该问题的一条潜在变革性途径。通过系统调查，我们发现阿雷西博ISR在雷暴期间记录的白天电子密度突然变化平均而言与晴朗天气条件下（由其他外部因素驱动）发生的变化不同。这些变化通常对应于D区和E区的电子密度损耗。该调查还表明，这些扰动与太阳耀斑相关的扰动不同，太阳耀斑往往持续时间更长，且最常对应于当地电子密度含量的增加。
