This, in part, led Inan et al. However, many lightning discharges of both polarities may produce significant charge moment changes on 0.5 ms time scale and may produce sprite halos but no further sprite breakdown, for which additional charge moment changes, possibly accumulating over some milliseconds, may be necessary. Many of these events may be invisible when integrated on a 17 ms video field. As mentioned by Inan et al. In view of the relatively high lightning rate in many thunderstorms, it is of interest to evaluate possible cumulative effects of electromagnetic pulses from successive lightning strokes.
Blue regions show net electron depletion, while red shows ionization enhancements.
The color scale shows net attachment in blue and net ionization in red. Changes to the electron density are locally as high as a factor of 8 increase and a factor of 3 decrease after 10 strokes. Figure 2.9 presents the same data but averaged over the 300 km diameter region overlying the causative lightning. This is relevant for consideration of the large-scale effects of an intense and distributed lightning storm such as a mesoscale convective system . The altitude distribution of electron density enhancements and depletions agrees well for a single return stroke.