Detection of lightning activity using GPS PWV measurements

Knowledge of lightning activity in the middle atmosphere down to Earth surface and its relationship with a global warming phenomenon is posing a great challenge for observational and prediction studies. This paper utilized the GPS data to monitor the tropospheric precipitable water vapor (PWV) changes as a climate variable due to lightning discharges. Analysis data on November 2009 over Bangi area within the radius of 20 km showed that all the lightning activities were preceded by Intra-Cloud (IC) and followed by Cloud-to-Ground (CG) after a certain time gap. For most cases in this region found that the lightning activity was frequent in the afternoon between 13:00 and 20:00 local time (LT) and the CG was accompanied by IC in all the time but not vice versa. Based on the 14 samples of lightning days, there were 64.29% and 28.57% correlated with an increase and decrease in PWV content, respectively. The finding can be motivating the further research on utilizing the GPS data as a guide to predict the occurrence of lightning.