Balloon-Borne Electric-Field Observations Relevant to Models for Sprites and Jets

摘要

We designed and built a new balloon-borne electric-field-change instrument and launched five of them into thunderstorms to observe changes in the vertical component of electric field caused by lightning. We discuss examples of field changes observed at altitude and compare them with data from the National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN) for cloud-to-ground lightning flashes that were coincident in time. It appears that the field changes may have been caused by charge movements relatively near the instruments as compared with the ground-strike location of coincident flashes. Though we were unable to obtain field-change data coincident with Transient Luminous Events, we developed a working balloon-borne field-change sensor and demonstrated the feasibility of launching it in storms. We plan to continue these observations in STEPS 2000.