Volcanic Lightning: Observations and Constraints on Mechanisms

这项跨学科资助的主要研究人员是阿拉斯加费尔班克斯大学的史蒂夫·麦克纳特和麻省理工学院的厄尔·威廉姆斯，他们正在对火山引发的闪电活动进行初步的系统调查。在羽流环境中，关键的充电成分水和粒子处于极端状态，对羽流环境中的充电机制的研究有望比在研究更多的雷暴环境中更好地了解这些量是如何驱动充电的，即使是在借鉴相同的知识的情况下。研究人员正集中于两项主要任务：1)完成全球火山闪电观测参数的数据库；2)测试该现象的物理模型。这项工作的一个重要的前瞻性方面是确定目标火山，以改进仪器进行进一步研究。这项工作的更广泛的影响是有可能为进一步的火山电气化跨学科研究提供坚实的基础，通过更好地了解火山诱发闪电而提高飞机安全性，并有机会向学生和公众展示和教授跨学科科学的实用性。

The principal investigators of this interdisciplinary grant, Steve McNutt from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Earle Williams from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, are conducting an initial systematic investigation of volcano induced lightning activity. The study of the charging mechanisms in the plume environment, where the critical charging components water and particles are in an extreme state, has the promise of providing better insight into how these quantities drive charging than in the more studied thunderstorm environment, even while drawing on the knowledge of the same. The investigators are concentrating on two principal tasks: 1) Completing a database of global observations of volcanic lightning parameters, and 2) Testing physical models of the phenomenon. An important forward-looking aspect of this work is to identify target volcanoes for improved instrumentation for further study. The broader impacts of this work are the potential to provide a firm foundation for further interdisciplinary research on volcano electrification, increased aircraft safety that would result from better understanding of volcano induced lightning, and the opportunity to demonstrate and teach the utility of interdisciplinary science to students and the public.