Sounding observation of vertical electric field in eyewall of Typhoon Wipha (No. 1907) during landing period

Abstract

In the summer of 2019, one case of electric field sounding in eyewall of No.1907 typhoon named Wipha was obtained in Wenchang, Hainan Island, China. Up to now, it has been the first case of electric field sounding results obtained in a typhoon system. In this paper, based on the observations of satellite, meteorological radar, ground electric field and cloud-to-ground flash location data of Hainan province, China, the basic characteristics of the typhoon are analyzed in detail. Owing to the limitation of cloud-to-ground flash location system, only flash activities of the typhoon before and after landing period are analyzed and the result does not show obvious features as reported by other researches. Referring to the radar reflectivity and sounding path, we confirm that the sounding penetrates through the eyewall region of the typhoon from cloud base to top. The electric field profile and the charge region distribution in the sounding path area are analyzed, and the results show that four positive and three negative charge regions exist between 5.74 and 9.10 km above sea level and the corresponding temperatures range from –2.4 to –16.7 ℃ of the seven charge regions. The mean charge densities of each charge region from bottom to top are 0.63 nC/m³, –0.33 nC/m³, 0.31 nC/m³, –1.03 nC/m³, 1.70 nC/m³, 1.57 nC/m³ and –1.20 nC/m³, respectively. According to the preliminary analysis, we consider that the two positive charge layers at the top should be in the same charge region. Under the comprehensive consideration of the thickness of charge regions, the intensities of these six charge regions are 0.33 nC/m², –0.07 nC/m², 0.06 nC/m², –0.87 nC/m², 0.73 nC/m², and –0.18 nC/m², respectively. We can find that there are three dominant charge regions with largest intensity and they are the lowest positive charge region, the middle main negative region, and upper main positive charge region. And these vertical distributions of the three dominant charge regions are characterized by a tripole charge structure. These results are basically consistent with some simulation results. In addition, a negative screen charge region with a shallow depth in a range of 15–20 dBZ of the upper cloud boundary can be found. Combining the popular charging mechanisms, the similarity of tripole charge structure between our sounding and normal thunderstorm are discussed, and we preliminary consider that the non-inductive charging mechanism and the inductive charging mechanism, which originate from normal convection, are also suitable for eyewall region of typhoon.