Sustained heating of the ionosphere above thunderstorms as evidenced in "early/fast" VLF events

Umran S. Inan, Victor P. Pasko, Timothy F. Bell

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

72 Scopus citations

Abstract

Quasi-electrostatic (QE) thundercloud fields are proposed to maintain the ionospheric electrons at a persistently heated level well above their ambient thermal energy. Changes in the thundercloud charge (e.g., in lightning discharges) lead to heating/cooling above/below this quiescent level, and are registered as sudden (i.e., 'fast' < 20 ms) subionospheric VLF signal changes, occurring simultaneously (i.e., 'early', < 20 ms) with lightning discharges, and referred to as early/fast VLF events [Inan et al., 1993].

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number96GL01360
Pages (from-to)1067-1070
Number of pages4
JournalGeophysical Research Letters
Volume23
Issue number10
DOIs
StatePublished - 1996

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Geophysics
  • General Earth and Planetary Sciences

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