Influence of land use land cover and topography on lightning distribution over north and north-east Indian region

IF 1.8 4区地球科学 Q3 GEOCHEMISTRY & GEOPHYSICS

Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics Pub Date : 2025-02-08 DOI:10.1016/j.jastp.2025.106460

Swapnil S. Potdar , Devendraa Siingh , Rupraj Biswasharma , Alok Sagar Gautam , R.P. Singh

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Spatio-temporal variation of lightning characteristics over North India (NI) and North-East India (NEI) during the period 2001–2014 is studied in connection with the land use land cover (LULC) and topography of the Himalaya ranges. Lightning flashes detected by Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) on board the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite are analysed for different LULC classes measured by Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and elevation data from Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). We observed that the annual lightning flashes are high in the NI region compared to the NEI region; with a peak during monsoon period in the NI region, whereas peaks in the NEI were found to be during pre-monsoon months. The thermodynamics parameters such as maximum temperature (MaxT), convective available potential energy (CAPE), latent heat flux (LHF) and bulk microphysics such as total cloud cover liquid water (TCCLW) and total cloud cover ice water (TCCIW) along with lightning flash rate density (LFRD) also analysed with respect to different LULC classes. The impact of LULC on lightning activity is evident in both the study regions. In the both the region, human-induced landscapes such as croplands, urban built-up areas consistently show the high lightning activity due to favourable thermodynamic and microphysical conditions. Natural landscapes such as forest, grasslands show moderate lightning activity while savannas and permanent wetlands shows high lightning activity showing that vegetation helps in maintaining high soil moisture which may play a significant role in lightning occurrences. Topography significantly influenced lightning occurrence, with higher flash rates in foothill areas due to surface heating and moisture convergence, and in Meghalaya due to orographic lifting. Lightning activity in both study regions is higher at lower altitudes (<500m) and decreases with altitude, with a more prominent decline in case of NI region. We found the positive lightning trends in areas of expanding agriculture and urbanization highlighting the role of LULC change in the lightning distribution over both the regions.

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来源期刊

Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 地学-地球化学与地球物理

CiteScore

4.10

自引率

5.30%

发文量

审稿时长

6 months

期刊介绍： The Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics (JASTP) is an international journal concerned with the inter-disciplinary science of the Earth''s atmospheric and space environment, especially the highly varied and highly variable physical phenomena that occur in this natural laboratory and the processes that couple them. The journal covers the physical processes operating in the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, ionosphere, magnetosphere, the Sun, interplanetary medium, and heliosphere. Phenomena occurring in other "spheres", solar influences on climate, and supporting laboratory measurements are also considered. The journal deals especially with the coupling between the different regions. Solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and other energetic events on the Sun create interesting and important perturbations in the near-Earth space environment. The physics of such "space weather" is central to the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics and the journal welcomes papers that lead in the direction of a predictive understanding of the coupled system. Regarding the upper atmosphere, the subjects of aeronomy, geomagnetism and geoelectricity, auroral phenomena, radio wave propagation, and plasma instabilities, are examples within the broad field of solar-terrestrial physics which emphasise the energy exchange between the solar wind, the magnetospheric and ionospheric plasmas, and the neutral gas. In the lower atmosphere, topics covered range from mesoscale to global scale dynamics, to atmospheric electricity, lightning and its effects, and to anthropogenic changes.