Extracting the structure of lightning with the LOFAR radio telescope

Speaker Brian Hare, PhD, University of Groningen

Lightning is poorly understood. Despite being a well-known phenomena, and an object of study since Benjamin Franklin, we still do not understand how lightning initiates, propagates, or emits intense bursts of gamma rays capable of blinding orbiting satellites. The fundamental difficulties being that lightning is too complex to simulate and is very difficult to observe due to extremely fast time scales and tendency to hide behind obscuring clouds. In order to alleviate these difficulties our research group has learned how to observe lightning with the Dutch LOFAR radio telescope, which allows us to measure not just the location and shape of the lightning, but also the meter and nanosecond scale structure of the lightning plasma channels. In this talk I will introduce the science of lightning physics, the open questions, and how we are using the LOFAR radio telescope to advance the field; including our recent ongoing collaboration with KNMI.

Bio: Brian received his PhD from the University of Florida, studying the emission of gamma rays from rocket-triggered lightning. After his PhD, in 2017, he moved to the University of Groningen to learn how to use the Dutch LOFAR radio telescope to image lightning. Since then he has turned LOFAR into the highest precision lightning imaging system in the world, which has allowed him to observe lightning growth at small scales and even discover new lightning phenomena. Recently he was awarded an ERC starting grant to continuehis work using LOFAR to probe lightning.

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Thursday, March 9, 2023 1:00 PM | 1 hour | (UTC+01:00) Amsterdam, Berlin, Bern, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna
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