Abstract Lightning Location Systems provide detailed data on the lightning occurring within the area of the system's coverage. This kind of remote sensing equipment uses geolocation techniques to retrieve lightning cloud-to-ground return strokes. Prior to getting information regarding the number of lightning flashes, cloud-to-ground strokes need to be grouped into lightning flashes. The stroke-to-flash conversion is not straight forward and therefore, a stroke-to-flash grouping criteria (flash algorithm) is needed to obtain subsequent figures like the Ground Flash Density (NG). It is now more than twenty years since the most used stroke-to-flash grouping criteria was established: 1 s, 10 km radius and 500 ms inter-stroke interval. In the course of these years, new observational systems like the Lightning Mapping Array have been deployed to precisely depict the lightning flash extension and duration. The present work aims to introduce a new approach to the flash algorithm, taking advantage of the Lightning Mapping Array capabilities. Two methods based on this system have been used in this study as an alternative way for grouping cloud-to-ground strokes into flashes. These methods are compared with the classical flash algorithm. Results suggest shortening the total flash duration and enlarging the clustering radius. Besides, this work also analyses the sensitivity of the flash algorithm to the changes on the grouping criteria. Changes in these parameters will have a bearing on the retrieved annual number of lightning flashes, and thus will also influence derived lightning figures like the NG.

中文翻译：

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雷击到闪光分组标准的敏感性分析

摘要 闪电定位系统提供系统覆盖区域内发生的闪电的详细数据。这种遥感设备使用地理定位技术来检索闪电云对地的回击。在获得有关闪电次数的信息之前，需要将云对地击中分为闪电。笔画到闪光的转换不是直接的，因此，需要笔画到闪光的分组标准（闪光算法）来获得诸如地面闪光密度 (NG) 之类的后续数字。自建立最常用的笔画到闪光分组标准以来已有二十多年了：1 秒、10 公里半径和 500 毫秒的笔画间隔。这些年来，部署了闪电映射阵列等新观测系统，以精确描绘闪电的延伸和持续时间。目前的工作旨在引入一种新的闪光算法方法，利用闪电映射阵列的能力。本研究中使用了基于该系统的两种方法，作为将云对地雷击分组为闪光的替代方法。这些方法与经典的 flash 算法进行了比较。结果表明缩短总闪光持续时间并扩大聚集半径。此外，这项工作还分析了闪存算法对分组标准变化的敏感性。这些参数的变化将对检索到的年度闪电次数产生影响，因此也会影响导出的闪电数字，如 NG。