Global Lightning Flash Rate Climatology from Satellite Sensors

1995 to 2014 global climatology of total lightning flash rates on a 0.5-degree grid. Data is synthesized from two spaceborne sensors: the Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) on the TRMM satellite and the Optical Transient Detector (OTD) on OrbView-1. The dataset is produced and hosted by NASA's Global Hydrology Resource Center Distributed Active Archive Center (GHRC DAAC).

Use Cases

• Analyzing the spatial distribution of annual lightning flash density across different latitudes.
• Comparing tropical/subtropical lightning activity (from LIS) with higher-latitude activity (from OTD).
• Studying long-term climatological patterns of atmospheric electricity and convection.
• Using gridded flash rate data as a boundary condition or validation dataset for atmospheric models.
• Investigating the relationship between lightning frequency and other climate variables in specific geographic regions.

Strengths

• Combines long-duration records from two complementary satellite sensors, LIS (tropics/subtropics) and OTD (high latitudes).
• Provides a consistent, long-term (1995-2014) climatological baseline for global lightning activity.
• Offers high-resolution global coverage on a standardized 0.5-degree geographic grid.
• Hosted by NASA's authoritative GHRC DAAC, indicating curated data provenance.

Limitations

• Specific row/column counts and dataset size are not provided by any source.
• Sources conflict on the last updated date (2014-12-31 vs. 2026-03-13), suggesting metadata inconsistency.
• High-latitude data relies solely on the OTD sensor, which may have different characteristics than the tropical LIS record.

Provenance

Source

NASA Global Hydrology Resource Center Distributed Active Archive Center (GHRC DAAC).

Collection Method

Gridded climatologies derived from optical lightning detection sensors on the TRMM (LIS) and OrbView-1 (OTD) satellites.

Time Range

1995 to 2014

Freshness

2026-03 13 01:09:02.896039

Geography

Global, on a 0.5-degree latitude/longitude grid.