@InProceedings{MattosMach:2010:ChEvDu,
               author = "Mattos, Enrique Vieira and Machado, Luiz Augusto Toledo",
          affiliation = "{} and {Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE)}",
                title = "Cloud to Ground Lightning Properties and Mesoscale Convective 
                         System: Characteristics and Evolution During the Life Cycle",
            booktitle = "Posters",
                 year = "2010",
         organization = "The Meeting of the Americas.",
            publisher = "AGU",
             keywords = "lightning, mesoscale convective system, cloud microphysics, 
                         nowcasting.",
             abstract = "In recent years the research about Mesoscale Convective Systems 
                         (MCS) electrical activity has been increased, probably due to the 
                         raise of severe weather conditions. The knowledge of the clouds 
                         processes associated to the occurrence of cloud to ground lighting 
                         in MCS can be used as a nowcasting tool to support the extreme 
                         events mitigation decision. The join use of cloud to ground 
                         lightning data ground sensors and MCS physical properties data 
                         obtained from the geostationary satellite infrared channel has 
                         become essential information to help convective and electric 
                         activity nowcasting over regions with intense occurrence of 
                         lightning. In particular, Brazil has an extensive land area and is 
                         near to the equator, it is intensely affected by this phenomenon, 
                         being hit by around 50 million of the cloud to ground lightning 
                         annually, causing major damage to the sectors of electricity 
                         energy, telephone and telecommunications. This work presents the 
                         relationship between cloud to ground lightning occurrence with 
                         some MCS physical proprieties and characterize the lifecycle 
                         evolution differences between MCS with (thunderstorm) and without 
                         lightning (storm). The basic information were obtained from the 
                         GOES-10 satellite infrared images, a MCS tracking algorithm called 
                         Forecast and Tracking the Evolution of Cloud Clusters (FORTRACC) 
                         and cloud to ground lighting data from the Brazilian Atmospheric 
                         Discharge Detection Network (BRASILDAT) for the S{\~a}o Paulo 
                         state region in the period from 2007 to 2009. The combined 
                         information from infrared channels with cloud-ground lightning 
                         enabled characterizes about MCS seven hundred, between fourth 
                         hundred thunderstorms and three hundred storms. The diurnal cycle 
                         showed the maximum normalized area expansion happened tree hours 
                         (15 hours GMT) before the maximum lightning occurrence (18 hours 
                         GMT). The study of the physical proprieties had evidenced that MCS 
                         size and temperature had strong influence on lightning occurrence, 
                         a linear dependence and exponential relationship was 
                         characterized, where the most intense lightning occurrence lower 
                         210 K was found. Thunderstorm life cycle duration is about 2.5 
                         hours longer than storms life cycle duration, also thunderstorm 
                         presents larger size and initial area expansion. Therefore, 
                         initial area expansion, life cycle duration and size can be used 
                         as a proxy of the cloud to ground lightning. Moreover the most MCS 
                         electrical activity was characterized between initiation stage and 
                         maturation, and the same happened to lightning average density 
                         (cloud-ground lightning.km-2). This newest principal results found 
                         in South America showed considerable potential to be used in near 
                         futures for severity diagnostic and cloud-ground lightning 
                         nowcasting.",
  conference-location = "Foz do Igua{\c{c}}u",
      conference-year = "8-12 Aug. 2010",
             language = "en",
         organisation = "AGU",
           targetfile = "Enrique_cloud.pdf",
        urlaccessdate = "28 abr. 2024"
}