Spatial and temporal distribution of lightning strokes over North Asia and its comparison with solar activity variations in 2009–2016

Abstract

We analyze variations of lightning activity presented by the lightning stroke number obtained by the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) within the territory with boundaries 40–80° N and 60–180° E in 2009–2016. There are two regions with high lightning activity: western (48–60° N, 60–90° E) and eastern (40–55° N, 110–140° E). The lightning stroke density in these regions is 10–100 times higher than that in surrounding areas. The comparison between daily variations of lightning stroke number and the 10.7 cm solar radio flux shows no correlation: the linear cor-relation coefficient varied from –0.55 to 0.86 in the western region and from –0.78 to 0.39 in the eastern region during all summer seasons. During the ascending phase of solar cycle 24, there was a spatial lightning redistribution between the western and eastern regions of high lightning activity. During peaks of the solar cycle and its descending phase, the redistribution was not so pronounced as that during the ascending

Keywords

• lightning stroke
• spatial distribution
• World Wide Lightning Location Network