HR: 17:20h
AN: AE44A-07 [Abstracts]
TI: Balloon-borne vector electric field measurements
AU: * Winn, W P
EM: winn@loon.nmt.edu
AF: New Mexico Tech
Langmuir Laboratory, 801 Leroy Place, Socorro, NM 87801, United States
AU: Aulich, G D
EM: aulich@grosbeak.nmt.edu
AF: New Mexico Tech
Langmuir Laboratory, 801 Leroy Place, Socorro, NM 87801, United States
AU: Hunyady, S J
EM: hunyady@kestrel.nmt.edu
AF: New Mexico Tech
Langmuir Laboratory, 801 Leroy Place, Socorro, NM 87801, United States
AU: Eack, K B
EM: keack@kestrel.nmt.edu
AF: New Mexico Tech
Langmuir Laboratory, 801 Leroy Place, Socorro, NM 87801, United States
AU: Sonnenfeld, R G
EM: rsonnenf@nmt.edu
AF: New Mexico Tech
Langmuir Laboratory, 801 Leroy Place, Socorro, NM 87801, United States
AU: Walden-Newman, W
EM: wwaldenn@nmt.edu
AF: New Mexico Tech
Langmuir Laboratory, 801 Leroy Place, Socorro, NM 87801, United States
AU: Alvidrez, V M
EM: valvidre@nmt.edu
AF: New Mexico Tech
Langmuir Laboratory, 801 Leroy Place, Socorro, NM 87801, United States
AU: Lu, G
EM: gplu@nmt.edu
AF: New Mexico Tech
Langmuir Laboratory, 801 Leroy Place, Socorro, NM 87801, United States
AU: Edens, H E
EM: edens@nmt.edu
AF: New Mexico Tech
Langmuir Laboratory, 801 Leroy Place, Socorro, NM 87801, United States
AB:
Electric field-change measuring systems have been employed
on the ground beneath thunderstorms for many decades to
deduce the movement of electrical charge during lightning
flashes. We began flying electric field change instruments
on balloons in 2004 to measure changes in electric vectors
inside thunderstorms. Here we report on results from a new
version of the earlier instrument with a faster sampling
rate (70,000 per second), which was flown in the summer of
2007. During one detected lightning flash, when the instrument
was 6.0 km above sea level and ascending, the vertical component
Ez of the electric field was almost completely undisturbed by
the flash, while concurrently the horizontal components Ex and Ey
were widely differing functions of time with large amplitudes.
These results suggest that charges in different horizontal
directions at the altitude of the balloon were affected at
different times during the flash.
DE: 0320 Cloud physics and chemistry
SC: Atmospheric and Space Electricity [AE]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting