Correlation between the Channel Discharge Current and Spectrum of a Single-Stroke Lightning Flash to Canton Tower

Abstract

The intense current of lightning plasma can emit radiation across various parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. Spectral observation is an effective means to understand the radiation characteristics of lightning channels at different wavelengths. In this context, the spectra and channel current of a single-stroke lightning flash to Canton Tower were acquired from the Tall-Object Lightning Observatory in Guangzhou using a slitless high-speed spectrograph and a Rogowski coil. Spectral correction was applied for enhanced spectral analysis. The relationship between the intensities of different spectral lines and the directly measured current of the lightning channel was investigated for the first time. The results indicated that the duration of the ionic lines in the visible region can be up to one millisecond during the entire discharge process, which is clearly longer than the duration reported in previous research. There always exists a good exponential relationship (y = axb) between the intensities of ionic lines and the channel current with an exponent value (b) very close to 2 and with a coefficient of determination (R2 value) higher than 0.99, whereas the exponential relationship between many atomic lines and the channel current has an exponent value clearly smaller than 2 with a relatively lower R2 value, which implies that the intensities of ionic lines are evidently associated with the square of the current, while the intensities of atomic lines have relatively weak exponential correlation with the current. We also preliminarily verified this conclusion with temperature derived from the ionic and atomic lines. The results indicated that due to the time integral of the current squared, the cooling rate of the temperature derived from the ionic lines in the channel core is not significant when the current decreases, while the cooling rate of the temperature derived from the atomic lines of the surrounding corona sheath channel presents a pronounced decline with a decrease in current.

Keywords

• lightning channel spectral characteristics
• channel current
• correlation
• channel temperature
• return stroke