Gamma‐Ray Glows Commonly Followed by Lightning: A Statistical Study of the Spatio‐Temporal Relationship
Chu‐Nan Zhang, Yunjiao Pu, Steven Cummer, Martino Marisaldi, Nikolai Østgaard, Andrey Mezentsev, Ingrid Bjørge‐Engeland, Øystein Håvard Færder, David Alexandre Stephan Sarria, Nikolai G. Lehtinen, Anders Nødland FuglestadAbstract
Gamma‐ray glows are prolonged enhancements of gamma rays from thunderclouds, which are often linked to large‐scale electric fields rather than individual lightning. The link between glows and lightning remains poorly understood. Here, we analyzed 300 glows observed during the ALOFT aircraft campaign and optical lightning detected by GLM. The results indicate that lightning becomes progressively less likely to coexist with a glow as the gamma‐ray intensity increases. Lightning activity also decreases several seconds before the glow peak but increases sharply afterward. Furthermore, approximately 78% of glows are followed by lightning within 1 s and 10 km, and the lightning frequency during the following second is 5.3 times that during the preceding second. These results reveal that lightning is closely related to glow reduction, suggesting that glow‐producing high‐field conditions and lightning discharge are closely coupled in the evolution of the thunderstorm electrical environment.