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Investigation of Electrification Mechanisms and Relationship between the Electrical Discharge Frequency and Radar Characteristics of the Thunderstorm in China

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Abstract

The development of a thunderstorm cell in the Beijing area according to the results of numerical modeling and field observations is considered. Based on the numerical simulation, it is shown that the most intense electrification process is the separation of charges as a result of collisions of hailstones and cloud crystals. Using the field observations, the relationship between the electrical and radar characteristics of the cloud was investigated. It is demonstrated that the highest positive correlation is observed between the frequency of discharges and the volume of the supercooled part of the cloud above the 0°C isotherm, and the highest negative correlation is revealed between the frequency of discharges and the maximum current in a discharge.

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Funding

The research was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grants 17-05-00965, BRIKS_t 18-55-80020) and China grant 2018YFE101200 and was performed using the resources of the Lomonosov Moscow State University supercomputer system [2]. The results of the study were obtained using the computing resources of the supercomputer center of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University (http://www.spbstu.ru).

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Correspondence to Yu. A. Dovgalyuk.

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Russian Text ©The Author(s), 2020, published in Meteorologiya i Gidrologiya, 2020, No. 10, pp. 63-72.

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Dovgalyuk, Y.A., Veremei, N.E., Sin’kevich, A.А. et al. Investigation of Electrification Mechanisms and Relationship between the Electrical Discharge Frequency and Radar Characteristics of the Thunderstorm in China. Russ. Meteorol. Hydrol. 45, 712–719 (2020). https://doi.org/10.3103/S1068373920100052

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.3103/S1068373920100052

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