Lightning2EarthCARE: Collocated geostationary lightning and EarthCARE observations of electrically active storms

Abstract. Lightning activity reflects mixed-phase microphysical and dynamical processes in convective storms, but observations linking electrical activity to vertical cloud structure remain limited. The EarthCARE satellite now provides vertically resolved observations of clouds and precipitation, including Doppler velocity measurements, while the Meteosat Third Generation Lightning Imager (MTG-LI) and the GOES-R Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) continuously observe total lightning from geostationary orbit, enabling collocated observations of electrically active storms.

Here we present Lightning2EarthCARE, a collection of datasets and a lightning storm catalogue constructed from collocated EarthCARE overpasses and geostationary lightning observations, available through the European Space Agency Open Science Catalogue under DOI https://doi.org/10.57780/esa-7c530aa (Piskala Gvoždíková et al., 2026b). The collection includes three linked products: frame-level lightning observations within EarthCARE Multispectral Imager-like frames, track-level lightning counts along EarthCARE’s nadir vertical sampling, and corresponding storm-level records with summary lightning characteristics and the temporal evolution of storm lightning activity within ±1 hour of the EarthCARE overpass.

The first version of the dataset covers the first year and a half of EarthCARE operations, from August 2024 to January 2026 within the geostationary lightning observing domain between 60° S and 60° N. During this period, EarthCARE sampled 6071 lightning storms along its narrow nadir track. The sampled cases include lightning associated with convective cores as well as stratiform or anvil regions. In cases dominated by convective cores, lightning maxima are generally aligned with EarthCARE signatures of strong convection, including multiple scattering effects in the radar signal and strongly variable Doppler velocities. This demonstrates the physical consistency between the collocated lightning activity and the EarthCARE cloud and precipitation observations.

Lightning2EarthCARE provides a resource for linking geostationary lightning observations with EarthCARE vertical cloud profiling. The catalogue supports analyses of how lightning occurrence and intensity vary with storm structure, evolution stage, and observing environment, and provides a foundation for model evaluation and future integration with additional satellite or ground-based observations.