TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND RADIO ENGINEERING - 2011 Vol. 70,
No 11 		 

 

 

 

SOUTH AMERICAN THUNDERSTORMS AND THE SOUTH ATLANTIC GEOMAGNETIC ANOMALY



A.Ð. Nickolaenko1 & O.Â. Pechony2
1A. Usikov Institute of Radio Physics and Electronics,
National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
12, Academician Proskura St., Kharkiv 61085, Ukraine
22NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University, New York, NY
Address all correspondence to A.Ð. Nickolaenko E-mail: sasha@ire.kharkov.ua

Abstract
Extensive information was accumulated on the global lightning activity by the space vehicles “Optical Transient Detector” (OTD) and “Lightning Imaging Sensor” (LIS), which is applied in different investigations. Precipitation of energetic particles from the Earth’s radiation belts causes numerous false lightning detections when satellites pass through the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA), positioned nearby the east-south coast of South America. Aggressive selection (filtering) procedures were applied to the optical data resulting in unavoidable losses of true flashes along with radiation noise. Distinctions in interaction of the spaceborne equipment with the anomaly and different data filtering procedures resulted in remarkable deviations between OTD and LIS lightning distributions in this region. We compare optical data with DEMETER satellite observations and discuss possible causes of deviations among OTD and LIS data We also suggest that high lightning activity in the SAA region indicated by LIS might be a manifestation of a link between the space and terrestrial weather, and, possibly, a yet unexplored feedback mechanism between lightning discharges and cosmic particle precipitation.
KEY WORDS:South Atlantic Anomaly of geomagnetic field; global thunderstorm activity, optical detectors

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