TRMM observations of the global relationship between ice water content and lightning

This study uses TRMM lightning and radar observations to study the fundamental relationship between precipitation ice mass and lightning flash density. The results indicate that the physical assumptions of precipitation‐based charging and mixed phase precipitation development are robust and that on a global scale , the relationship between precipitation ice water path and lightning flash density is relatively invariant between land, ocean and coastal regimes. Hence lightning data may be a useful variable for inclusion in combined space borne algorithms designed to retrieve ice water content.