Electromagnetic and Optical Investigations of Cloud-to-Ground Lightning and Its Connections to In-Cloud Discharge Processes

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AbstractATM-0531673William H. BeasleyElectromagnetic and optical investigations of cloud-to-ground lightning and its connections to in-cloud discharge processes.Dr. Beasley is seeking to take advantage of recent advances in instrumentation development to obtain time-correlated high-speed optical imaging of cloud-to-ground lightning flashes, fast and slow broadband electromagnetic field observations, and observations of in-cloud lightning discharge channel geometry. Combining measurements from these instruments will shed new light on several unresolved questions related to cloud lightning. In particular, he will investigate relationships between in-cloud and cloud-to-ground lightning characteristics, characterize lightning flashes that appear to bear a causal relation to the occurrence of Transient Luminous Events, and seek to understand better why some lightning flashes are detected optically by satellites while other are not. The broader impact of this project is the potential to increase the nations infrastructure with which to study lightning initiation and cloud-to-ground lightning processes, an area of direct societal interest as lightning has a significant impact on many different elements of industry and society.