The Urban Lightning Effect Revealed with Geostationary Lightning Mapper
Observations
Abstract
Within the Charlotte, North Carolina, to Atlanta, Georgia, megaregion
(Charlanta), the Atlanta metropolitan area has been shown to augment
proximal cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning occurrence. Although numerous
studies have documented this “urban lightning effect” (ULE) with
regard to CG lightning, relatively few have investigated urban effects
on distributions of total lightning (TL). Moreover, there has yet to be
a study of the ULE using TL observations from the Geostationary
Lightning Mapper (GLM). In an effort to fill this gap, we investigated
spatial distributions of TL around the cities of Atlanta, GA,
Greenville, SC, and Charlotte, NC, using GLM data collected during the
warm seasons of 2018–2021. Analyses reveal augmentation of total
lightning intensity and frequency over the major cities of Atlanta and
Charlotte, with a diminished urban signal over the smaller city of
Greenville. This work also demonstrated the potential efficacy of the
emerging satellite-based TL climatology in ULE studies.