Timothy J. Lang (ST11) is a coauthor on an article called “Characterizing Charge Structure in Central Argentina Thunderstorms During RELAMPAGO Utilizing a New Charge Layer Polarity Identification Method,” which was recently accepted in the journal Earth and Space Science. This study developed and evaluated a novel automated technique for classifying electrical charge layers in thunderstorms using a NASA MSFC Lightning Mapping Array (LMA) that was deployed in Argentina for the RELAMPAGO (Remote sensing of Electrification, Lightning, And Mesoscale/microscale Processes with Adaptive Ground Observations) field campaign in 2018-2019. The study was led by Bruno Medina, a Ph.D. student at University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), who developed the technique to simplify what often involves very laborious manual processing of LMA data.
The new automated technique shows very good agreement with manual charge analysis, and thus enables a much larger volumes of LMA data to be processed to reveal accurate thunderstorm charge structures. The new method can be used on any LMA dataset, including the permanent North Alabama Lightning Mapping Array (NALMA) managed by MSFC. This will enable new charge layer products to be provided by LMAs in the near future.
Read the paper at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2021EA001803.
Charge layers estimated from flashes using the Chargepol automated method for all Remote sensing of Electrification, Lightning, And Mesoscale/microscale Processes with Adaptive Ground Observations (RELAMPAGO) thunderstorms on December 27, 2018 from 0900 to 2300 UTC. Each red (blue) vertical line represents a positive (negative) charge layer estimated from a flash. Large black symbols represent the altitudes in which most charge layers of a certain polarity were estimated for each hour period, as long as more than 30 layers with that polarity were present in that hour. Small black symbols represent the mean altitudes of the top and bottom of charge layers for each polarity and hour. Dashed gray line shows flash rate for the entire domain.