The Maritime Continent Thunderstorm Experiment

在两个雷暴季节对热带辐合带（ITCZ）某区域进行了闪电观测。澳大利亚的达尔文市之所以被选为竞选地点，是因为它在季风季节的形成阶段经常发生雷暴。第一次活动于1996年11月初至11月底在达尔文举行。第二次运动于1997年11月中旬至12月中旬进行。观测的主要项目是利用干涉仪观测重建雷云内部的闪电通道。由于我们配备了两套基线长度为15 km的干涉仪系统，基本上可以获得闪电通道的三维成像。为了定量地获得多击闪电放电过程的特征，主要对第一个梯队和随后的梯队进行了梯队传播的二维分析。得到了第一步领导者和后续领导者的晋升速度随时间的函数。我们还计算了平均速度，并从它们的传播方面了解了梯级leader、支队leader和支队梯队leader之间的差异。研究了经典多点笔画与多点笔画特征差异的差异。根据达尔文的观测，我们可以得出结论，经典多点笔划和多点笔划的云内放电起始位置基本相同。许多红色精灵从云层顶部到较低的电离层被记录下来，这是额外的观察结果。

Lightning observations in a region of the inter tropical convergence zone (ITCZ) were carried out durring two thunderstorm seasons. Darwin Australia was chosen for the campaign site because of its frequent occurrence of thunderstorms during the building up stage of its monsoon seasons. The first campaign in Darwin was held from early November through end of November in 1996. The second campaign was conducted from mid November through mid December in 1997. The main item of observations was reconstruction of lightning channels inside thundercloud by means of interferometer observations. Since we equipped two systems of interferometer with the base line length of 15 km, three dimensional imaging of lightning channels was besically available.To obtain features of the progression of lightning discharges for multiple strokes quantitatively, two dimensional analysis for stepped leader propagation are mainly given for first stepped leader and subsequent leaders. The velocity of leader progressions were obtained for both the first stepped leader and subsequent leaders as a function of time. We also calculated the average velocities, and learned the discrepancy among stepped leaders, dart leaders and dart stepped leader from the aspects of their propagation. Wc leaned the discrepancy of the characteristic difference between classic multiple strokes and multi-point strokes. According to the observations in Darwin we can conclude that the location of the initiation of discharges inside clouds for both classic multiple strokes and multi point strokes are basically same.Many Red Sprites which are the discharges from the cloud top to the lower ionosphere were recorded, and this was the additional observations.