Japan Geoscience Union Meeting 2015

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International Session (Oral)

Symbol A (Atmospheric and Hydrospheric Sciences) » A-CG Complex & General

[A-CG09] Satellite Earth Environment Observation

Wed. May 27, 2015 11:00 AM - 12:45 PM 301B (3F)

Convener:*Riko Oki(Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), Tadahiro Hayasaka(Graduate School of Science, Tohoku University), Kaoru Sato(Department of Earth and Planetary Science, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo), Masaki Satoh(Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo), Nobuhiro Takahashi(National Institute of Information and Communications Technology), Yoshiaki HONDA(Center for Environmental Remote Sensing, Chiba University), Kenlo Nasahara(Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba), Takashi Nakajima(Tokai University, School of Information Science & Technology, Dept. of Human & Information Science), Taikan Oki(Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo), Tatsuya Yokota(National Institute for Environmental Studies), Yukari Takayabu(Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, the University of Tokyo), Hiroshi Murakami(Earth Observation Research Center, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), Hajime Okamoto(Kyushu University), Chair:Misako Kachi(Earth Observation Research Center, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency)

11:30 AM - 11:45 AM

[ACG09-09] Importance of Lightning Observations from Geostationary Orbit

*Mitsuteru SATO1, Tomoo USHIO2, Toru ADACHI3, Makoto SUZUKI4 (1.Faculty of Science, Hokkaido University, 2.Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, 3.Meteorological Research Institute, 4.ISAS/JAXA)

Keywords:lightning, geostationary satellite, data assimilation, severe weather, nowcasting

Lightning is a good proxy to represent the activities of the deep convections in the tropics and subtropics. Recent studies showed a close relation between lightning activities and typhoon (hurricane) intensities, upper-tropospheric water vapor variability, and temperature fluctuations in the tropical atmosphere. Moreover, a number of studies on the lightning data assimilation into mesoscale models presented considerable improvement in the accuracy of the weather forecast. As the importance of the lightning measurements are greatly acknowledged, a single-channel, near-infrared optical camera, named Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM), will be onboard GOES-R and GOES-S. In Europe, same type of the lightning detector, named Lightning Imager (LI), will be onboard MTG-I. After the launch of these geostationary satellites, which is planned within a few years, lightning activities over North and South America, Africa, Europe, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Indian Ocean will be continuously monitored. However, an installation of the lightning detector on the future MTSAT series is not planned so far. At the presentation, we will discuss the importance of lightning observations from geostationary orbit and their applications.