Far-Field power of lightning strokes as measured by the worl
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TitleFar-Field power of lightning strokes as measured by the world wide lightning location networkAbstractThe World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) is a long-range network capable of locating lightning strokes in space and time. While able to locate lightning to within a few kilometers and tens of microseconds, the network currently does not measure any characteristics of the strokes themselves. The capabilities of the network are expanded to allow for measurements of the far-field power from the rootmean-square electric field of the detected strokes in the 6-18-kHz band. This is accomplished by calibrating the network from a single well-calibrated station using a bootstrapping method. With this technique the global median stroke power seen by the network is 1.0 ×10 6 W, with an average uncertainty of 17%. The results are validated through comparison to the return-stroke peak current as measured by the New Zealand Lightning Detection Network and to the previous ground wave power measurements in the literature. The global median stroke power herein is found to be four orders of magnitude lower than that reported earlier for the measurements, including the nearby ground and sky wave. However, it is found that the far-field waveguide mode observations herein are consistent with the previous literature because of differences in observational techniques and the efficiency of coupling into a propagation wave in the Earth-ionosphere waveguide. This study demonstrates that the WWLLN-determined powers can be used to estimate the return-stroke peak currents of individual lightning strokes occurring throughout the globe. © 2012 American Meteorological Society.AcknowledgementsThe authors thank the WorldWide Lightning Location Network (http://wwlln.net), a collaboration among over 50 universities and institutions, for providing the lightning location data used in this paper. We are grateful to the New Zealand MetService for collecting the NZLDN data, and to Antarctica New Zealand for supporting the operation of the Scott Base WWLLN station. This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation Grant AGS-0809988.
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1st AuthorHutchins, M.AuthorHutchins, M.Holzworth, R.Rodger, C.Brundell, J.Year2012JournalJournal of Atmospheric and Oceanic TechnologyVolume29Number8Pages1102-1110DOI10.1175/JTECH-D-11-00174.1URLhttps://www.scopus.com/inward/recor.....7721a4eb6a8cc4c65a2fbc85eKeywordsBootstrapping methodEarth ionosphere waveguideFar-fieldFour-orderGround wavesInstrumentation/sensorsLightning detectionLightning locationLightning strokesNew zealandPeak currentsRoot mean squaresSpace and timeWaveguide mode, Atmospheric electricityElectric fieldsIonosphereWaveguides, Lightning, atmospheric electricityionospherelightningnetwork analysissensor, rank5Author KeywordsAtmospheric electricityInstrumentation/sensorsIonosphereLightning
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TypeArticleCitationHutchins, M., Holzworth, R., Rodger, C. and Brundell, J. (2012). Far-Field power of lightning strokes as measured by the world wide lightning location network. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 29(8): 1102-1110IdentifierHutchins2012bRelevancerank5
Brundell, J., Far-Field power of lightning strokes as measured by the worl , [Hutchins2012b]. Antarctica NZ, accessed 03/05/2026, https://adam.antarcticanz.govt.nz/nodes/view/63566, 10.1175/JTECH-D-11-00174.1