The most otherworldly, mysterious forms of lightning on Earth

Summary

On the Tibetan Plateau, north of the Himalayas, thunderstorms are very common. The dramatic changes in elevation produce intense convection in the atmosphere and the churning of wet air creates clouds—a rich laboratory for studying TLEs. Yet none had been recorded there until An and Dong’s storm imagery in 2022.Huang and his collaborator Gaopeng Lu, an atmospheric physicist at the University of Science and Technology of China, developed a method to synchronize the videos and photos that An and Dong took on the Tibetan Plateau. Using satellite data and maps of the stars in the night sky to determine the timestamps of each video frame, the team linked around 70 percent of verified sprites to the parent lightning that triggered them.To Huang, the results demonstrate the scientific value of amateur observations. “It’s exciting that this field brings together professional scientists and passionate amateurs, working side by side to understand something so ephemeral, yet so profound.” Not only did the photographers capture a significant number of red sprites, the Himalayan storm also featured even rarer TLEs called jets and ghosts. The team found 16 secondary jets, powerful columns of often blue or purple light darting upwards into the sky, and at least four ghosts, green hazy glows that can sometimes hover above red sprites.“While sprites [and other TLEs] may appear delicate and silent in the upper atmosphere, they are often linked to powerful, sometimes devastating weather systems,” says Huang. “Understanding them not only satisfies our curiosity about the upper atmosphere, but also helps us learn more about the storms we face here on Earth.”