% IMPORTANT: The following is UTF-8 encoded. This means that in the presence % of non-ASCII characters, it will not work with BibTeX 0.99 or older. % Instead, you should use an up-to-date BibTeX implementation like “bibtex8” or % “biber”. @ARTICLE{Sterpka:474239, author = {Sterpka, C. and Dwyer, J. and Liu, N. and Hare, B. M. and Scholten, O. and Buitink, S. and Veen, S. ter and Nelles, A.}, title = {{T}he {S}pontaneous {N}ature of {L}ightning {I}nitiation {R}evealed}, journal = {Geophysical research letters}, volume = {48}, number = {23}, issn = {0094-8276}, address = {Hoboken, NJ}, publisher = {Wiley}, reportid = {PUBDB-2022-00619}, pages = {GL095511}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Here, we present new radio interferometer beamforming observations of lightning initiation using data from the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR). We show that the first lightning source in the flash increases exponentially in intensity by two orders of magnitude in 15 μs, while propagating 88 m away from the initiation location at a constant speed of 4.8 ± 0.1 × 10$^6$ m/s. A second source replaces the first source at the initiation location, and subsequent propagation of the lightning leader follows. We interpret the first source to be a rapidly propagating and intensifying positive streamer discharge that subsequently produces a hot leader channel near the initiation point. How lightning initiates is one of the greatest unsolved problems in the atmospheric sciences, and these results shed light on this longstanding mystery.}, cin = {Z-RAD}, ddc = {550}, cid = {I:(DE-H253)Z-RAD-20210408}, pnm = {613 - Matter and Radiation from the Universe (POF4-613)}, pid = {G:(DE-HGF)POF4-613}, experiment = {EXP:(DE-MLZ)External-20140101}, typ = {PUB:(DE-HGF)16}, UT = {WOS:000730019700047}, doi = {10.1029/2021GL095511}, url = {https://bib-pubdb1.desy.de/record/474239}, }