Current Los Alamos Sferic Array Studies
Matthew J Heavner, David A Smith, and Jeremiah Harlin
NIS-1, Space and Atmospheric Sciences, Los Alamos National Laboratory
LAUR # 00-4770
This paper will be presented at Global Atmospherics'
2000 International
Lightning Detection Conference at 4:20 pm on November 7,
2000 in Tuscon, AZ. Please use the following reference:
Heavner, M. J., D. A. Smith, and J. Harlin, "Current Los Alamos Sferic Array
Studies", presented at 2000 International Lightning Detection
Conference, November 7, 2000,
http://nis-www.lanl.gov/~heavner/ildc2000/index.html.
This paper is also available in
postscript and
pdf
formats.
Abstract:
An array of fast electric-field-change sensors has been
operated in New Mexico, Texas, Florida, and Nebraska during
1998-2000 to improve identification of lightning processes
responsible for VHF and optical signals detected by the FORTE
satellite.
Differential time of arrival methods are used to provide
geo-locations of events from multi-station observations. A
comparison of two dimensional location from the sferic array and the
National Lightning Detection Network operated by Global
Atmospherics, Inc. is presented. Also, the time differences of
multiple paths of the lightning signals to a station due to
ionospheric reflection can be used to determine the altitude of a
temporally narrow event. We present altitude determination of
Compact Intracloud Discharges observed by the sferic array and
compare with the Kennedy Space Center Lightning Detection and
Ranging (LDAR) system in Florida.
