Lightning: Electromagnetic Environment and Source Parameters

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Lightning significantly impacts public safety and economic security both through its role in producing numerous injuries and loss of life as well as by frequent and extensive damage to forests, housing and businesses, and vulnerable technological systems upon which society increasingly depends. Scientific investigations supported by this project will serve to better detect and quantify a wide range of physical processes that accompany and ultimately control lightning initiation, propagation and environmental impacts. Efforts will combine observational and modeling approaches to address both naturally-occurring and "triggered" lightning strikes. These latter events hinge on a unique system utilizing small rockets (which trail a conductive wire) launched into active thunderstorms from an internationally-recognized research facility at Camp Blanding, Florida. Studies will also take advantage of expanded capabilities to measure high frequency electric field derivatives of lightning at a nearby facility in Gainesville. Both of these facilities are managed and operated by the Principal Investigator and partly supported via funds provided under this project.The intellectual merit of this research rests on the improved understanding of physics occurring within and immediately surrounding lightning channels, beginning with processes key to the initial triggering and step-wise propagation of lightning through the atmosphere, but ultimately encompassing electromagnetic emissions reaching into the nearby and distant environments. This research will utilize traditional advanced high-speed optical systems, but also involve detection and quantification of highly energetic x-ray and gamma-ray bursts, and will explore mechanisms involved in the generation of these recently identified emissions. Observations will address electromagnetic influences capable of disrupting power transmission and sensitive electronic systems and extend to evaluation of performance characteristics of the operational National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN). Analysis of unique data previously acquired at the aforementioned field observational sites in north-central Florida will continue.Broader impacts will be derived through improved methods for lightning detection and mitigation of associated damage, but will extend to student training, including direct involvement both graduate- and undergraduate-level students employed at the field research facilities and enhanced course offerings both on the campus of the Univ. of Florida and via a Distance Learning Program. Outreach through public seminars and high-school presentations will continue. Impacts will involve continuation of collaborations with international scientists and presentations at both domestic and international science and engineering conferences. Dissemination of results will occur both through media interviews, formal publications within established scientific journals, and through the Principal Investigator's established interface with energy generation and distribution companies and associated applied research groups.