Operation of an array of field-change detectors to provide ground truth for FORTE data
- Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States). Space and Atmospheric Sciences Group
- New Mexico Inst. of Tech., Socorro, NM (United States)
The authors have deployed an array of fast electric-field-change sensors around the state of New Mexico to help identify the lightning processes responsible for the VHF RF signals detected by the FORTE satellite`s wide-band transient radio emission receivers. The array provides them with locations and electric-field waveforms for events within New Mexico and into surrounding states, and operates continuously. They are particularly interested in events for which there are coincident FORTE observations. For these events, they can correct both the array and FORTE waveforms for time of flight, and can plot the two waveforms on a common time axis. Most of the coincident events are from cloud-go-ground discharges, but the most powerful are from a little-studied class of events variously called narrow bipolar events and compact intra-cloud discharges. They have therefore focused their attention on these events whether or not FORTE was in position to observe them.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Lab., Space and Atmospheric Sciences Group, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-36
- OSTI ID:
- 350952
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-99-868; CONF-990612-; ON: DE99002736; TRN: AHC29921%%138
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 11. international conference on atmospheric electricity (ICAE `99), Guntersville, AL (United States), 7-11 Jun 1999; Other Information: PBD: [1999]
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Observations and Inferred Physical Characteristics of Compact Intracloud Discharges
FORTE observations of simultaneous VHF and optical emissions from lightning: Basic phenomenology