Franklin Lecture: Recent Lightning Experiments at the International Center for Lightning Research and Testing: From Ball Lightning to Gamma Rays

Atmospheric and Space Electricity [AE]

AE23B
MC:2014 Tuesday 1450h

Presiding: T Marshall, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Mississippi

AE23B-01 INVITED

Recent Lightning Experiments at the International Center for Lightning Research and Testing: From Ball Lightning to Gamma Rays

* Uman, M A uman@ece.ufl.edu, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Florida P.O. Box 116200, Gainesville, FL 32611, United States

Recent lightning data and the instrumentation used to acquire it at the UF-FIT International Center for Lightning Research and Testing, located on about 1 square kilometer of flat ground at the Camp Blanding Army National Guard Base in north-central Florida, are discussed. The progress of several on-going studies is reviewed: (1) understanding the physics of the "classical" rocket-and-wire triggering of lightning from natural overhead thunderclouds, (2) attempting to generate ball lightning by allowing triggered-lightning to strike various materials and objects (e.g., tree-trunk sections, pools of salt water, silicon powder), (3) measuring the very close (100 m to 1 km) electric and magnetic fields of natural cloud-to-ground lightning, and (4) probing the relationship between lightning processes and the x-rays and gamma-rays associated with them.