The Effects of Nonplanar Cloud Top on Lightning Optical Observations from Space-Based Instruments

Satellite optical observations of lightning are influenced by a variety of factors. Studying these factors can provide valuable reference information for applications such as lightning parameter inversion. However, due to the variability of natural factors and the high cost of field observations, research requiring controlled variables often relies heavily on effective simulation models. To this end, we applied our developed optical transmission model for lightning, which can simultaneously account for the spatiotemporal characteristics of lightning sources and observation angles, as well as inhomogeneous and irregular cloud environments, to analyze an unexplained hypothesis from previous studies—that non-planar cloud tops may also be an influencing factor. Our analysis confirms that non-planar cloud tops are indeed an important factor that must be considered, especially under smaller or larger observation angles. In the simulation results, undulations caused an energy increase of up to 43.19% at a 0° observation angle, while at a 60° observation angle, the undulations resulted in an additional attenuation of approximately 17.5%.