Initial Electric Field Changes Of Lightning Flashes In Tropical Thunderstorms

Lightning has been observed to be initiated by a series of electric field (E-field) bipolar pulses known as Initial Breakdown (IB) pulses. However, the main problem with this observation is how the first pulse of IB is initiated when the existing background electric field inside thundercloud is not...

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Main Author:	Mohammad Sabri, Muhammad Haziq
Format:	Thesis
Language:	English English
Published:	2019
Subjects:	T Technology (General)
Online Access:	http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/24611/1/Initial%20Electric%20Field%20Changes%20Of%20Lightning%20Flashes%20In%20Tropical%20Thunderstorms.pdf http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/24611/2/Initial%20Electric%20Field%20Changes%20Of%20Lightning%20Flashes%20In%20Tropical%20Thunderstorms.pdf
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id	my-utem-ep.24611
record_format	uketd_dc
institution	Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka
collection	UTeM Repository
language	English English
advisor	Ahmad, Mohd Riduan
topic	T Technology (General) T Technology (General)
spellingShingle	T Technology (General) T Technology (General) Mohammad Sabri, Muhammad Haziq Initial Electric Field Changes Of Lightning Flashes In Tropical Thunderstorms
description	Lightning has been observed to be initiated by a series of electric field (E-field) bipolar pulses known as Initial Breakdown (IB) pulses. However, the main problem with this observation is how the first pulse of IB is initiated when the existing background electric field inside thundercloud is not enough to initiate the emission of the first pulse of IB. Recent study in 2017 based on Florida thunderstorms found Initial E-field Change (IEC) process initiated the first pulse of IB. The IEC is a slowly varying field represents the temporal change in cloud conductivity. So far, there are no other published results regarding IECs from other parts of the world. Therefore, this thesis is motivated to provide independent validation results based on tropical storms to the observations and analysis of IECs in Florida. The aims to design and develop measurement system to measure the IECs and VHF emissions from lightning flashes by using Fast E-field, Slow E-field and VHF E-field sensors. Then, the temporal characteristics of VHF emissions and IECs initiated the first IB pulse are analyzed. The key finding is that all the examined first classic IB pulses in 80 tropical flashes within the reversal distance were found to be initiated by an IECs. From this analysis, it is found that the durations of IECs are longer and the magnitude of E-change are smaller for both Negative Cloud-to-Ground (–CG) and Intra-cloud (IC) flashes in tropical storms. It shows that, the IEC process of lightning flashes in tropical regions took longer to increase the local electric field in order to produce the first IB pulse because of the smaller magnitude of E-change. Besides, in Florida storms, the IEC process took a shorter time to increase the local electric field to produce the first IB pulse because of the larger magnitude of E-change. It is found that the VHF pulses for tropical thunderstorms started earlier before the onset of the IECs between 12.69 and 251.60 µs for the two normal IC flashes. Additional results show that, the VHF pulses for three IC flashes initiated by Positive Narrow Bipolar Events (+NBEs) were also detected before the onset of the IEC. The IEC started immediately after the detection of the +NBE and it is initiated by VHF pulses.
format	Thesis
qualification_name	Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.)
qualification_level	Master's degree
author	Mohammad Sabri, Muhammad Haziq
author_facet	Mohammad Sabri, Muhammad Haziq
author_sort	Mohammad Sabri, Muhammad Haziq
title	Initial Electric Field Changes Of Lightning Flashes In Tropical Thunderstorms
title_short	Initial Electric Field Changes Of Lightning Flashes In Tropical Thunderstorms
title_full	Initial Electric Field Changes Of Lightning Flashes In Tropical Thunderstorms
title_fullStr	Initial Electric Field Changes Of Lightning Flashes In Tropical Thunderstorms
title_full_unstemmed	Initial Electric Field Changes Of Lightning Flashes In Tropical Thunderstorms
title_sort	initial electric field changes of lightning flashes in tropical thunderstorms
granting_institution	Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka
granting_department	Faculty of Electronic and Computer Engineering
publishDate	2019
url	http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/24611/1/Initial%20Electric%20Field%20Changes%20Of%20Lightning%20Flashes%20In%20Tropical%20Thunderstorms.pdf http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/24611/2/Initial%20Electric%20Field%20Changes%20Of%20Lightning%20Flashes%20In%20Tropical%20Thunderstorms.pdf
_version_	1747834077202874368
spelling	my-utem-ep.246112021-10-05T11:41:23Z Initial Electric Field Changes Of Lightning Flashes In Tropical Thunderstorms 2019 Mohammad Sabri, Muhammad Haziq T Technology (General) TK Electrical engineering. Electronics Nuclear engineering Lightning has been observed to be initiated by a series of electric field (E-field) bipolar pulses known as Initial Breakdown (IB) pulses. However, the main problem with this observation is how the first pulse of IB is initiated when the existing background electric field inside thundercloud is not enough to initiate the emission of the first pulse of IB. Recent study in 2017 based on Florida thunderstorms found Initial E-field Change (IEC) process initiated the first pulse of IB. The IEC is a slowly varying field represents the temporal change in cloud conductivity. So far, there are no other published results regarding IECs from other parts of the world. Therefore, this thesis is motivated to provide independent validation results based on tropical storms to the observations and analysis of IECs in Florida. The aims to design and develop measurement system to measure the IECs and VHF emissions from lightning flashes by using Fast E-field, Slow E-field and VHF E-field sensors. Then, the temporal characteristics of VHF emissions and IECs initiated the first IB pulse are analyzed. The key finding is that all the examined first classic IB pulses in 80 tropical flashes within the reversal distance were found to be initiated by an IECs. From this analysis, it is found that the durations of IECs are longer and the magnitude of E-change are smaller for both Negative Cloud-to-Ground (–CG) and Intra-cloud (IC) flashes in tropical storms. It shows that, the IEC process of lightning flashes in tropical regions took longer to increase the local electric field in order to produce the first IB pulse because of the smaller magnitude of E-change. Besides, in Florida storms, the IEC process took a shorter time to increase the local electric field to produce the first IB pulse because of the larger magnitude of E-change. It is found that the VHF pulses for tropical thunderstorms started earlier before the onset of the IECs between 12.69 and 251.60 µs for the two normal IC flashes. Additional results show that, the VHF pulses for three IC flashes initiated by Positive Narrow Bipolar Events (+NBEs) were also detected before the onset of the IEC. The IEC started immediately after the detection of the +NBE and it is initiated by VHF pulses. 2019 Thesis http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/24611/ http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/24611/1/Initial%20Electric%20Field%20Changes%20Of%20Lightning%20Flashes%20In%20Tropical%20Thunderstorms.pdf text en public http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/24611/2/Initial%20Electric%20Field%20Changes%20Of%20Lightning%20Flashes%20In%20Tropical%20Thunderstorms.pdf text en validuser https://plh.utem.edu.my/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=117076 mphil masters Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka Faculty of Electronic and Computer Engineering Ahmad, Mohd Riduan 1. Ahmad, M.R., Esa, M.R.M., and Cooray, V., 2013. Narrow Bipolar Pulses and Associated Microwave Radiation. Proc. of Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium (PIERS), Stockholm, Sweden, pp.1087.1090. 2. Ahmad, M.R., Esa, M.R.M., Cooray, V., Hettiarachi, P., and Baharudin, Z.A., 2014. Electric Field Signature of Narrow Bipolar Pulse Observed in Sweden. Atmospheric research. pp.139-148. 3. Ahmad, M.R., Esa, M.R.M., Cooray, V., Baharudin, Z.A., and Hettiarachi, P., 2015. Latitude dependence of narrow bipolar pulse emissions. ournal of Atmospheric and Solar- Terrestrial Physics, 128, pp.40.45. 4. Ahmad, M.R., Sidik, M.A.B., Zikri, M., Sabri, M.H.M., Periannan, D., Esa, M.R.M., 5. Abdul-Malek, Z., Lu, G., and Zhang, H., 2018. Evaluation of the Existence of Initial Breakdown Process for Cloud-to-Ground Flashes. In 2018 International Conference on Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (ICECOS), PANGKAL PINANG, Indonesia, 2018, pp. 425-428. 6. Azlinda Ahmad, N., Fernando, M., Baharudin, Z.A., Rahman, M., Cooray, V., Saleh, Z., Dwyer, J.R., and Rassoul, H.K., 2010. The first electric field pulse of cloud and cloud-toground lightning discharges. Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, 72 (2. 3), pp.143.150. 7. 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Initial Electric Field Changes Of Lightning Flashes In Tropical Thunderstorms

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