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Remote Sensing
Volume 13
Issue 7
10.3390/rs13071228
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Article

Enhancement of Cloud-to-Ground Lightning Activity Caused by the Urban Effect: A Case Study in the Beijing Metropolitan Area

by
Yongping Wang
1,
Gaopeng Lu
1,
Tao Shi
1,
Ming Ma
1,
Baoyou Zhu
1,
Dongxia Liu
2,
Changzhi Peng
3 and
Yu Wang
4,5,6,*
1
School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230000, China
2
Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100000, China
3
School of Electrical Engineering and Automation, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430000, China
4
State Grid Electric Power Research Institute, Wuhan 430074, China
5
Wuhan NARI Co., Ltd. of State Grid Electric Power Research Institute, Wuhan 430074, China
6
Hubei Province Key Laboratory of Lightning Risk Prevention for Power Grids, Wuhan 430074, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Remote Sens. 2021, 13(7), 1228; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13071228
Submission received: 13 February 2021 / Revised: 19 March 2021 / Accepted: 19 March 2021 / Published: 24 March 2021
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing of Lightning and Its Applications in Atmospheric Electricity Studies)
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Abstract

To investigate the possible impact of urban development on lightning activity, an eight-year (2010–2017) cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning dataset provided by the National-Wide Lightning Detection Network in China was analyzed to characterize the CG lightning activity in the metropolitan area of Beijing. There is a high CG flash density area over the downtown of Beijing, but different from previous studies, the downwind area of Beijing is not significantly enhanced. Compared with the upwind area, the CG flash density in the downtown area was enhanced by about 50%. Negative CG flashes mainly occurred in the downtown and industrial area, while positive CG flashes were distributed evenly. The percentage of positive CG flashes with Ipeak ≥ 75 kA is more than six times that of the corresponding negative CG flashes in the Beijing area. The enhancement of lightning activity varies with season and time. About 98% of CG flashes occurred from May to September, and the peak of CG diurnal variation is from 1900 to 2100 local time. Based on the analysis of thunderstorm types in Beijing, it is considered that the abnormal lightning activity is mainly responsible for an enhancement of the discharge number in frontal systems rather than the increase of the number of local thunderstorms. In addition, there is a non-linear relationship between pollutant concentrations and CG flash number, which indicates that there are other critical factors affecting the production of lightning.
Keywords: cloud-to-ground lightning; megacity; urban effect; atmospheric pollutant cloud-to-ground lightning; megacity; urban effect; atmospheric pollutant
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MDPI and ACS Style

Wang, Y.; Lu, G.; Shi, T.; Ma, M.; Zhu, B.; Liu, D.; Peng, C.; Wang, Y. Enhancement of Cloud-to-Ground Lightning Activity Caused by the Urban Effect: A Case Study in the Beijing Metropolitan Area. Remote Sens. 2021, 13, 1228. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13071228

AMA Style

Wang Y, Lu G, Shi T, Ma M, Zhu B, Liu D, Peng C, Wang Y. Enhancement of Cloud-to-Ground Lightning Activity Caused by the Urban Effect: A Case Study in the Beijing Metropolitan Area. Remote Sensing. 2021; 13(7):1228. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13071228

Chicago/Turabian Style

Wang, Yongping, Gaopeng Lu, Tao Shi, Ming Ma, Baoyou Zhu, Dongxia Liu, Changzhi Peng, and Yu Wang. 2021. "Enhancement of Cloud-to-Ground Lightning Activity Caused by the Urban Effect: A Case Study in the Beijing Metropolitan Area" Remote Sensing 13, no. 7: 1228. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13071228

APA Style

Wang, Y., Lu, G., Shi, T., Ma, M., Zhu, B., Liu, D., Peng, C., & Wang, Y. (2021). Enhancement of Cloud-to-Ground Lightning Activity Caused by the Urban Effect: A Case Study in the Beijing Metropolitan Area. Remote Sensing, 13(7), 1228. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13071228

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