Abstract:
Based on the June-August 2007 cloudtoground (CG) lightning dataset provided
by the Meteorological Observation Center of China Meteorological Administration
, the distribution and spatiotemporal variations of CG lightning over the Yangtze Riv
er Basin and adjacent areas during the summer of 2007 are analyzed and compared wi
th the thunderstorm distribution, the lightning distribution from loworbit sat
ellites and with the deep convection distribution denoted by TBB≤-52°C. The re
sults show that the four distributions are, to some extent, consistent with each
other. By comparing the 2007 CG lightning distribution with the lightning distr
ibution from the loworbit satellites, the CG lightning was more active over the Ya
ngtzeHuaihe River Basin, Sichuan, Chongqing, the Northwest Zhejiang Province, t
he middle of the Wuyi Mountains during the summer of 2007. In addition, the CG li
ghtning was more active in July and August than in June, and the location of act
ive areas is farther north, however, the positive CG lightning is the most active
in July. It shows that the mesoscale convective systems occurred more often in
July 2007. Diurnal variations of CG lightning were different over different area
s. Over the Sichuan Basin and the YangtzeHuaihe River Basin, the diurnal varia
tions of CG lightning had multiple active peaks, but there was only one active pe
riod of CG lightning all day long over ZhejiangJiangxiFujian area. The CG light
ning was often more active in the afternoon over the YangtzeHuaihe River Basin
and ZhejiangJiangxiFujian area, but it had an obvious nocturnal feature over
the Sichuan Basin. In the Southwest Sichuan Basin, the CG lightning obviously pro
pagated eastwards and northwards. It is also found that there is a marked differe
nce between the diurnal variations of positive CG lightning and negative CG ligh
tning over the western Sichuan Plateau, the middle YunnanGuizhou Plateau and t
he coastal areas in Zhejiang. By comparing the diurnal variations of negative CG
lightning with the positive CG lightning and the frequency of TBB≤-52℃ from the F
Y-2C satellite, the active period of negative CG lightning was often ahead of t
hat of positive CG lightning and the active period of positive CG lightning in t
hose areas was ahead of the frequency of TBB≤-52℃. It implies that the diurnal variations of negative CG lightning reflected the diurnal variations of initial convection, and positive CG lightning and the frequency of TBB≤-52℃ reflected the diurnal variations of mature and dissipating convections.