Lighting our atmosphere
A World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN – pronounced “woollen”) founded in New Zealand and connected through KAREN is helping scientists around the world with their research.
The WWLLN data, which plots lightning locations seconds after they occur, is used by scientists in a multitude of studies including lightning in the evolution of tropical cyclones, the affect of smoke from forest burn off in the Amazon on lightning activity, and scientists from NASA have even been using the network to study lightning’s role in the production of nitrogen oxides and ozone.
Tracking lightning helps antimatter hunt
WWLLN recently received mention in Science magazine (Vol.176 #12 (p. 9)) when the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope surprisingly recorded gamma-ray emissions produced only by the decay of positrons, the antimatter equivalent of electrons. WWLLN confirmed the presences of lightning strikes when and where Fermi detected the production of antimatter.
Dr Craig Rodger, a space physicist from the University of Otago, says the WWLLN is made up of a network of very low frequency (VLF) radio receivers at locations across the world that are joined together by the internet.
Around the world there are about 45 lightning flashes per second. Lightning radiation produces radio wave pulses known as “sferics” which propagate from the lightning and along the waveguide bounded by the Earth and the lower ionosphere. These sferics are registered at the receivers and the information on their arrival times is sent via KAREN.
“KAREN delivers lightning detection network data from all over the globe in real-time. This is processed here in Dunedin or at our other central processing point at the University of Washington in Seattle and put into online map form such as a Google Earth overlay.”
WWLLN expanding
“We currently have 40 stations around the globe, but are expanding in the next year and plan to reach over 60. This month we are installing two new stations: one in Manaus, Brazil and one in La Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean. Hardware has also just been delivered for stations in Dakar, Trelew, Rio Gallegos, Goa, Maitri, and Nova Scotia.
The network records and processes some three events per second, providing accurate time and location data. It is information which the world’s scientists are finding invaluable as more and more published papers cite the network’s data.
