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ISSN Druckformat: 0040-2508
ISSN Online: 1943-6009
Indexed in
SOUTH AMERICAN THUNDERSTORMS AND THE SOUTH ATLANTIC GEOMAGNETIC ANOMALY
ABSTRAKT
Extensive information was accumulated on the global lightning activity by the space vehicles "Optical Transient Detector" (OTD) and "Lightning Imaging Sensor" (LIS), which is applied in different investigations. Precipitation of energetic particles from the Earth's radiation belts causes numerous false lightning detections when satellites pass through the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA), positioned nearby the east-south coast of South America. Aggressive selection (filtering) procedures were applied to the optical data resulting in unavoidable losses of true flashes along with radiation noise. Distinctions in interaction of the spaceborne equipment with the anomaly and different data filtering procedures resulted in remarkable deviations between OTD and LIS lightning distributions in this region. We compare optical data with DEMETER satellite observations and discuss possible causes of deviations among OTD and LIS data We also suggest that high lightning activity in the SAA region indicated by LIS might be a manifestation of a link between the space and terrestrial weather, and, possibly, a yet unexplored feedback mechanism between lightning discharges and cosmic particle precipitation.