Citation

Yuuki Wada is one of the leading scientists in the field of high-energy atmospheric physics and will be a leader of the Atmospheric and Space Electricity (ASE) section in the upcoming generations. He has been conducting multiwavelength and multisensory studies of high-energy atmospheric phenomena in winter thunderstorms of Japan. He has developed portable and original radiation detectors, and constructed a dense network of gamma ray observation in the coastal area of the Sea of Japan. The high-quality data provided by the network have led to important discoveries such as photonuclear reactions by terrestrial gamma ray flashes (TGFs) and a TGF coincident with the termination of a gamma ray glow. Furthermore, by forming a collaboration not only with gamma rays but also with low-frequency sferics, the atmospheric electric field, and X-band radar observations, he has performed multisensory observations of lightning discharges and thunderclouds, which are the sources of high-energy atmospheric phenomena. With his deep insights into high-energy physics and atmospheric electricity, he is definitely one of the top researchers working in high-energy atmospheric physics. Yuuki has a very impressive publication record and has made several important contributions to ASE. He has 16 peer-reviewed papers in nine journals including Geophysical Research Letters and Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. One of the papers, on which he is second author, was published in Nature in 2017 and has 327 citations in Google Scholar at the time of this writing, which is impressive for a researcher who received his Ph.D. just recently. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Tokyo in March 2020. His doctoral dissertation was selected as the best thesis in the Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, and was published by Springer Nature as the Springer Theses series. He is now an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical, Electronic, and Info-Communications Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, Japan. —Tomoo Ushio, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan

Response

It is an honor to receive the AGU Atmospheric and Space Electricity (ASE) Early Career Award. The ASE section has provided great opportunities to discuss atmospheric electricity, including high-energy atmospheric physics, with our colleagues in the world. I am deeply grateful to our colleagues in the Gamma-Ray Observation of Winter Thunderclouds (GROWTH) collaborations, especially Dr. Teruaki Enoto, Dr. Kazuhiro Nakazawa, Dr. Takayuki Yuasa, Dr. Kazuo Makishima, and Dr. Harufumi Tsuchiya; and to our collaborators of multiwavelength observations, Dr. Masashi Kamogawa, Dr. Takeshi Morimoto, Dr. Yoshitaka Nakamura, and Dr. Tomoo Ushio. The citation notes my works on high-energy atmospheric physics, especially on observational studies of winter thunderstorms in Japan. I was interested in particle and nuclear physics and astrophysics when I was an undergraduate student. However, I realized that thunderstorms are a satisfactory target for high-energy physics as they emit high-energy particles close to us. Winter thunderstorms in Japan are one of the best targets to study high-energy phenomena in thunderclouds and lightning, such as terrestrial gamma ray flashes (TGFs) and gamma ray glows. The low-charge-center structure of winter thunderclouds enables us to detect them at sea level, while most of them have been detected by satellites, aircraft, balloons, and mountaintop experiments. Observations at sea level are low cost in principle but provide data of high quality. In particular, multisensory observations of a radiation monitor array, a radio frequency antenna network for lightning mapping, field mills, and meteorological radars are essential for high-energy atmospheric physics but are almost limited to ground-based experiments. One of our interests is how high-energy emissions interact with and affect lightning discharges and thunderstorms. High-energy atmospheric physics is a new field in this community and may affect the conventional questions of atmospheric electricity and atmospheric science, or wider fields. AGU and the ASE section provide an excellent opportunity to communicate with scientists in various fields of the Earth and space sciences. Last, I would like to mention the French satellite mission Taranis. I was involved in the development of the X-ray, gamma-ray, and relativistic electron detector on board Taranis and looked forward to seeing unprecedented data from multiple sensors on Taranis. However, the mission was unfortunately lost due to the launch failure in 2020. While I have been mainly working on ground-based experiments, the spaceborne experiment would have been an essential counterpart for TGF studies. I would like to express my gratitude to the Taranis team. —Yuuki Wada, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan

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Eric C. Bruning will receive the 2018 Atmospheric and Space Electricity Early Career Award at AGU’s Fall Meeting 2018, to be held 10–14 December in Washington, D. C. The award recognizes “outstanding early career contributions to atmospheric and space electricity.”

This is the first year the Atmospheric and Space Electricity (ASE) section’s Early Career Award will be presented. This award was created to recognize the outstanding contributions of early-career scientists who are primarily or secondarily affiliated with ASE. The award will be biennial, occurring in opposite years from the Benjamin Franklin Lecture, which is presented by an honored senior scientist within ASE. With this new award, we are very proud to continue the advancement of ASE science by promoting a culture that identifies and supports talent throughout all career stages.

—Timothy J. Lang, President, Atmospheric and Space Electricity section, AGU

Citation

Eric Bruning’s research has combined his observational studies with innovative theoretical methods to provide new insights into the processes by which storms produce lightning, particularly in relating lightning size and rates to turbulent storm structure and dissipated electrostatic energy and in clarifying processes causing anomalously electrified storms. His insights are presented in 23 peer-reviewed papers in such journals as Journal of Geophysical Research, Atmospheric Research, and Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences.

Recognizing that progress in our science is inextricably linked to new observations, Eric has obtained essential observations using his West Texas Lightning Mapping Array and other Texas Tech University observing systems. He also helped plan and carry out the extensive Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry (DC3) experiment and the Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment–Southeast (VORTEX-SE) and the field program to verify performance of the GOES-16 Geostationary Lightning Mapper.

Eric is well recognized for his research achievements, for generously sharing his expertise and resources with students and colleagues, and for scientific leadership. He has advised, served, or chaired several national and international science organizations. He also chaired the Eighth Conference on Meteorological Applications of Lightning Data, developed a training course for the National Weather Service, and gave tutorials on lightning and analysis tools to students and colleagues. He did all this while maintaining a full teaching and advising load at Texas Tech, having advised 11 M.S. students and two Ph.D. students.

In summary, Eric has generously contributed to the infrastructure of our science and has combined his solid foundation in both meteorology and mathematics to make significant advances in our understanding of thunderstorm electrification.

On behalf of the AGU Atmospheric and Space Electricity section, I am pleased to present our section’s 2018 Early Career Award to Dr. Eric Bruning.

—Donald MacGorman, National Severe Storms Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Norman, Okla.

Response

It is an honor to receive the AGU Atmospheric and Space Electricity (ASE) Early Career Award. AGU and ASE have been a crucial part of my professional growth from the earliest days. I’m especially grateful to Drs. W. David Rust (whom I very much miss) and Donald MacGorman of the National Severe Storms Laboratory for providing an opportunity to engage in research with the ASE community as an undergraduate and throughout my time at the University of Oklahoma, to Dr. Michael Biggerstaff for his guidance and advising, and to Dr. Paul Krehbiel for numerous clarifying conversations. Each of these individuals has been a committed educator who provided valuable mentoring and research training while humanely conveying high standards for professional work. Without them I would not have understood the horizon of opportunity. More recently, I am grateful to Dr. Steven Goodman for connecting me to the GOES-R Geostationary Lightning Mapper program at the University of Maryland and to Texas Tech University and my colleagues and graduate students there for providing a fertile home for an independent research program.

The citation notes my work on lightning and the turbulent structure of clouds, neither of which is highly regarded for its tractability as a physical system. Nevertheless, I was attracted to lightning’s coupling to the worst of nonlinear fluid dynamics because the beauty of the data, at least to my eye, was in the complexity of lightning flashes as a multitude of variously sized, space-filling fractal objects. I see work on this problem as a microcosm of the challenges that are present across studies of the Earth system and its plethora of coupled, nonlinear systems. AGU brings the study of those systems together, and I look forward to future discoveries alongside my colleagues as we continue to observe and characterize eddies and electricity in the atmosphere.

—Eric C. Bruning, Texas Tech University, Lubbock