Differences Between Two Types of Trans‐Ionospheric Pulse Pairs (TIPPs) Observed by SY‐15 Satellite at 500 km Altitude: Physical Parameters and Geographic Distribution
Zongxiang Li, Xiong Zhang, Xiaoqiang Li, Feifan Liu, Baoyou Zhu, Rubin Jiang, Hongbo Zhang, Yongli Wei, Yuan Wang, Baofeng Cao, Peng LiAbstract
The SY‐15 satellite's wideband electromagnetic pulse detector (WEMPD) detects two types of trans‐ionospheric pulse pairs (TIPPs): Wide and narrow TIPPs, responding to intracloud narrow bipolar events and discrete breakdown events, respectively. WEMPD observations show that: (a) The wide TIPP intra‐pair separation has an inverse relationship to the source‐satellite geometric distance; (b) Wide and narrow TIPPs are widely distributed in lightning chimney regions, while narrow TIPPs are not detected over the sampled inland regions in this study; (c) Events with pulse energy ratio greater than one occur predominantly only in wide TIPPs and are concentrated in lightning‐rich coastal waters; (d) The wide TIPPs' mean discharge altitude (15.4 km) derived from the reflection model using the intra‐pair separation is significantly higher than that of narrow TIPPs (13.0 km), consistent with ground‐based observations. All the above phenomena and discrepancies can be reasonably explained within the theoretical framework of the pulse‐pair reflection model. This research is of great importance for the development of global transient event warning systems.