A New Look at Earth’s Lightning

  • Released Monday, September 23, 2024
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Map of lightning frequency showing Lake Maracaibo in northern Venezuela and Lake Kivu between Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo are the places with the most lightning.

Map of lightning frequency showing Lake Maracaibo in northern Venezuela and Lake Kivu between Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo are the places with the most lightning.

This map draws on observations from multiple sensors—the ISS LIS, the TRMM LIS, and OTD. The TRMM LIS collected data between 1997 and 2015; OTD was operational between 1995 and 2000; and ISS LIS has been flying since 2017. Scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of Alabama-Huntsville published an updated map in March 2021. Researchers from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center released a similar map of lightning activity, based on three years of ISS LIS observations, in July 2020.

For More Information

See https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/149301

Credits

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NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using data from Peterson, et al. (2021).

This page was originally published on Monday, September 23, 2024.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, October 23, 2024 at 3:03 PM EDT.