Spatial Variation of the Correlated Color Temperature of Lightning Channel

TL;DR

This paper introduces a digital image processing method to analyze the spatial variation of correlated color temperature in lightning channels, revealing changes in energy distribution along the channels.

Contribution

The study presents a novel approach combining image processing and color analysis to quantify spatial CCT variations in lightning channels.

Findings

CCT varies spatially along lightning channels.

Lightning energy distribution correlates with CCT changes.

Method enables detailed lightning channel analysis.

Abstract

In present work, we propose the analysis method of lightning based on the color analysis. We analyzed the digital still images in which the cloud-to-ground (CG) and intracloud (IC) lightning flashes are shown. Applying some digital image processing techniques, we extracted lightning channels. Then, the correlated color temperature (CCT) of the extracted lightning channels was obtained by mapping digital pixels of the extracted lightning channels to CIE 1931 xy-chromaticity diagram. Our results indicate that the CCT of lightning channels changes spatially. Furthermore, it suggests that the energy of lightning channels changes spatially.