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Upper-atmospheric lightning
Upper-atmospheric lightning or upper-atmospheric discharge are termssometimes used by researchers to refer to a family of electrical-breakdownphenomena that occurs well above the altitudes of normal lightning. Thepreferred current usage is transient luminous events (TLEs) to refer to thevarious types of electrical-discharge phenomena induced in the upper atmosphere by tropospheric lightning. TLEs include red sprites, sprite halos,blue jets, gigantic jets, and elves.
History
In the 1920s, the Scottish physicist C. T. R. Wilson predicted that electrical breakdown shouldoccur in the atmosphere high above large thunderstorms.[1] However, it was not until July 6,1989 that the first direct visual evidence of high altitude electrical discharges was documentedby scientists from the University of Minnesota. Several years after their discovery, the opticalsignatures of these events were named 'sprites' by researchers at the University of Alaska toavoid inadvertently implying physical properties that were, at the time, still unknown. The termsred sprites and blue jets gained popularity after a video clip was circulated following an aircraftresearch campaign to study sprites in 1994.[2]
Sprites
Sprites are large scale electrical discharges which occur high above a thunderstorm cloud, or cumulonimbus, giving rise to a quite varied range of visual shapes. They are triggered by thedischarges of positive lightning between the thundercloud and the ground.[3] The phenomenawere named after the mischievous sprite (air spirit) Puck in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night'sDream. They normally are colored reddish-orange or greenish-blue, with hanging tendrils below,and arcing branches above, their location, and can be preceded by a reddish halo.[4] They oftenoccur in clusters, lying 50 miles (80 km) to 90 miles (145 km) above the Earth's surface. Spriteswere first photographed on July 6, 1989 by scientists from the University of Minnesota and havesince been witnessed tens of thousands of times.[5] Sprites have erroneously been heldresponsible for otherwise unexplained accidents involving high altitude vehicular operationsabove thunderstorms.[6]
Blue jets
Blue jets differ from sprites in that they project from the top of the cumulonimbus above athunderstorm, typically in a narrow cone, to the lowest levels of the ionosphere 40 to 50 km (25to 30 miles) above the earth. In addition, whereas red sprites tend to be associated withsignificant lightning strikes, blue jets do not appear to be directly triggered by lightning (they do,however, appear to relate to strong hail activity in thunderstorms).[7] They are also brighter thansprites and, as implied by their name, are blue in color. The color is believed to be due to a set of blue and near-ultraviolet emission lines from neutral and ionized molecular nitrogen. They werefirst recorded on October 21, 1989, on a monochrome video of a thunderstorm on the horizontaken from the Space Shuttle as it passed over Australia. Blue jets occur much less frequentlythan sprites; fewer than a hundred images have been obtained to date (2007). The majority of
these images, which include the first color imagery, were associated with a single thunderstormbeing studied by researchers from the University of Alaska in a series of 1994 aircraft flights tostudy sprites[8].
Blue starters
Blue starters were discovered on video from a nighttime research flight around thunderstorms [9]and appear to be "an upward moving luminous phenomenon closely related to blue jets."[10]They appear to be shorter and brighter than blue jets, reaching altitudes of only up to 20 km.[11]"Blue starters appear to be blue jets that never quite make it," according to Dr. Victor P. Pasko,associate professor of electrical engineering.[12]
Gigantic jets
On September 14, 2001, scientists at the Arecibo Observatory photographed a huge jet doublethe height of those previously observed, reaching around 70 km (43 miles) into theatmosphere.[13] The jet was located above a thunderstorm over the ocean, and lasted under asecond. Lightning was initially observed traveling up at around 50,000 m/s in a similar way to atypical blue jet, but then divided in two and sped at 250,000 m/s to the ionosphere, where theyspread out in a bright burst of light.On July 22, 2002, five gigantic jets between 60 and 70 km (35 to 45 miles) in length wereobserved over the South China Sea from Taiwan, reported in Nature.[14][15] The jets lastedunder a second, with shapes likened by the researchers to giant trees and carrots.
Elves
Elves often appear as a dim, flattened, expanding glow around 400 km (250 miles) in diameter that lasts for, typically, just one millisecond.[16] They occur in the ionosphere 100 km (60 miles)above the ground over thunderstorms. Their color was a puzzle for some time, but is nowbelieved to be a red hue. Elves were first recorded on another shuttle mission, this time recordedoff French Guiana on October 7, 1990. Elves is a frivolous acronym for Emissions of Light andVery Low Frequency Perturbations from Electromagnetic Pulse Sources.[17] This refers to theprocess by which the light is generated; the excitation of nitrogen molecules due to electroncollisions (the electrons possibly having been energized by the electromagnetic pulse caused bya discharge from an underlying thunderstorm).Upper atmospheric lightning - Red Sprites, BlueJets and ElvesIn addition to their well known effects in the troposphere, large thunderstorms produce severalkinds of lesser known effects on the middle and upper atmosphere.
Red sprites, blue jets and elves are upper atmospheric optical phenomena associated withthunderstorms that have only recently been documented by using low light level televisiontechnology. These phenomena are collectively called Transient Luminous Events (TLE's). Asobservations continue, scientists are collecting a confusing menagerie of phenomena .
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