LOFAR lightning imaging: mapping lightning with nanosecond precision

B.M. Hare, O. Scholten, A. Bonardi, S. Buitink, A. Corstanje, U. Ebert, H. Falcke, J.R. Hörandel, H. Leijnse, P. Mitra, K. Mulrey, A. Nelles, J. P. Rachen, L. Rossetto, C. Rutjes, P. Schellart, S. Thoudam, T.N.G. Trinh, S. ter Veen, T. Winchen

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Abstract

Lightning mapping technology has proven instrumental in understanding lightning. In this work we present a pipeline that can use lightning observed by the LOw-Frequency ARray (LOFAR) radio telescope to construct a 3-D map of the flash. We show that LOFAR has unparalleled precision, on the order of meters, even for lightning flashes that are over 20 km outside the area enclosed by LOFAR antennas (∼3,200 km2), and can potentially locate over 10,000 sources per lightning flash. We also show that LOFAR is the first lightning mapping system that is sensitive to the spatial structure of the electrical current during individual lightning leader steps.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2861-2876
Number of pages16
JournalJournal of Geophysical Research. D, Atmospheres
Volume123
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 16 Mar 2018

Funding

The LOFAR cosmic ray key science project acknowledges funding from an Advanced Grant of the European Research Council (grant FP/2007-2013)/ERC grant 227610. The project has also received funding from the ERC under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant 640130). We further more acknowledge financial support from FOM (FOM grant 12PR304) and NWO (VENI grant 639-041-130). A. N. is supported by the DFG (grant NE 2031/1-1). This paper is based (in part) on data obtained with the International LOFAR Telescope (ILT) under project code LC6_003. LOFAR (van Haarlem et al., 2012) is the Low Frequency Array designed and con structed by ASTRON. It has observing, data processing, and data storage facilities in several countries, that are owned by various parties (each with their own funding sources), and that are collectively operated by the ILT foundation under a joint scientific policy. The ILT resources have benefitted from the following recent major funding sources: CNRS-INSU, Observa-toire de Paris and Université d’Orléans, France; BMBF, MIWF-NRW, MPG, Germany; Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation (DBEI), Ireland; NWO, The Netherlands; The Science and Technology Facilities Council, UK. The data used in this paper are available from Hare et al. (2017).

Keywords

  • leader propagation
  • lightning
  • lightning mapping
  • LOFAR
  • time of arrival

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