Library Portal | UWC Portal
    • Login
    Contact Us | Quick Submission Guide | About Us | FAQs | Login
    View Item 
    •   Repository Home
    • Faculty of Natural Sciences
    • Physics
    • Research Articles (Physics)
    • View Item
    •   Repository Home
    • Faculty of Natural Sciences
    • Physics
    • Research Articles (Physics)
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    First ground-based observations of sprites over southern Africa

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    Nnadih_First-ground_2018.pdf (479.0Kb)
    Date
    2018
    Author
    Nnadih, Stanislaus
    Kosch, Mike
    Martinez, Peter
    Bor, Jozsef
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    Sprites are the optical signatures of electrical discharges in the mesosphere triggered by large lightning strikes associated with thunderstorms. Since their discovery in the late 1980s, sprites have been observed extensively around the world, although very few observations of sprites from Africa have been documented in the literature. In this paper, we report the first ground-based recorded observations of sprites from South Africa. In 2 out of the 22 nights of observations (11 January and 2 February 2016), about 100 sprite elements were recorded from Sutherland in the Northern Cape, comprising different morphologies (carrot (55%), carrot/column (11%), unclassified (21%), column (13%)). The sprites were triggered by positive cloud-to-ground lightning strikes, which had an average peak value of ~74 kA and were observed at distances from ~400 km to 800 km. The estimated charge moment change of the lightning discharges associated with these events was in agreement with the threshold for dielectric breakdown of the mesosphere and correlates well with the observed sprite brightness.
    URI
    https://doi. org/10.17159/sajs.2018/4272
    http://hdl.handle.net/10566/4085
    Collections
    • Research Articles (Physics) [112]

    DSpace 5.5 | Ubuntu 14.04 | Copyright © University of the Western Cape
    Contact Us | Send Feedback
    Theme by 
    @mire NV
     

     

    Browse

    All of RepositoryCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    Statistics

    View Usage Statistics

    DSpace 5.5 | Ubuntu 14.04 | Copyright © University of the Western Cape
    Contact Us | Send Feedback
    Theme by 
    @mire NV