The intensification of metallic layered phenomena above thunderstorms through the modulation of atmospheric tides

Bingkun Yu; Xianghui Xue; Chengling Kuo; Gaopeng Lu; Christopher J Scott; Jianfei Wu; Ju Ma; Xiankang Dou; Qi Gao; Baiqi Ning; Lianhuan Hu; Guojun Wang; Mingjiao Jia; Chao Yu; Xiushu Qie

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-54450-1

The intensification of metallic layered phenomena above thunderstorms through the modulation of atmospheric tides

Sci Rep. 2019 Nov 29;9(1):17907. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-54450-1.

Authors

Bingkun Yu^{1

2}, Xianghui Xue^{3

4

5}, Chengling Kuo⁶, Gaopeng Lu^{1

7

8}, Christopher J Scott², Jianfei Wu^{1

7}, Ju Ma^{1

9}, Xiankang Dou^{1

9}, Qi Gao^{1

9}, Baiqi Ning¹⁰, Lianhuan Hu¹⁰, Guojun Wang¹¹, Mingjiao Jia^{1

9}, Chao Yu^{1

9}, Xiushu Qie^{12

13}

Affiliations

¹ CAS Key Laboratory of Geospace Environment, Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.
² Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Berkshire, UK.
³ CAS Key Laboratory of Geospace Environment, Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China. xuexh@ustc.edu.cn.
⁴ Mengcheng National Geophysical Observatory, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China. xuexh@ustc.edu.cn.
⁵ CAS Center for Excellence in Comparative Planetology, Hefei, China. xuexh@ustc.edu.cn.
⁶ Institute of Space Science, National Central University, Jhongli, Taiwan.
⁷ CAS Center for Excellence in Comparative Planetology, Hefei, China.
⁸ State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics (LASG), Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
⁹ Mengcheng National Geophysical Observatory, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.
¹⁰ Key Laboratory of Earth and Planetary Physics, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
¹¹ State Key Laboratory of Space Weather, Center for Space Science and Applied Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
¹² Key Laboratory of Middle Atmosphere and Global Environment Observation, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
¹³ Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, China.

Abstract

We present a multi-instrument experiment to study the effects of tropospheric thunderstorms on the mesopause region and the lower ionosphere. Sodium (Na) lidar and ionospheric observations by two digital ionospheric sounders are used to study the variation in the neutral metal atoms and metallic ions above thunderstorms. An enhanced ionospheric sporadic E layer with a downward tidal phase is observed followed by a subsequent intensification of neutral Na number density with an increase of 600 cm^-3 in the mesosphere. In addition, the Na neutral chemistry and ion-molecule chemistry are considered in a Na chemistry model to simulate the dynamical and chemical coupling processes in the mesosphere and ionosphere above thunderstorms. The enhanced Na layer in the simulation obtained by using the ionospheric observation as input is in agreement with the Na lidar observation. We find that the intensification of metallic layered phenomena above thunderstorms is associated with the atmospheric tides, as a result of the troposphere-mesosphere-ionosphere coupling.