Gridded lightning climatology from TRMM-LIS and OTD: Dataset description

Gridded climatologies of total lightning flash rates observed by the spaceborne Optical Transient Detector (OTD) and Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) instruments have been updated. OTD collected data from May 1995 to March 2000. LIS data (equatorward of about 38°) adds the years 1998–2010. Flash counts from each instrument are scaled by the best available estimates of detection efficiency. The long LIS record makes the merged climatology most robust in the tropics and subtropics, while the high latitude data is entirely from OTD. The gridded climatologies include annual mean flash rate on a 0.5° grid, mean diurnal cycle of flash rate on a 2.5° grid with 24 hour resolution, mean annual cycle of flash rate on a…

• NA
  National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• MS
  Marshall Space Flight Center