Lightning as an Indicator of Climate

ESSIC/CISESS scientist Daile Zhang attended and presented at the National Climate Assessment (NCA) “Lightning as an Indicator of Climate” Annual Science Meeting that was held on June 6-7 at the UMD Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science (AOSC) Atlantic Building. The meeting is an annual working group get-together for people from NASA, University of Arizona, City College of New York, University of Alabama in Huntsville, and University of Maryland on various lightning tasks/projects, including lightning climatology, lightning NOx observations, dry lightning, wildfires, and this year’s NASA Marshall Space Flight Center CubeSpark project.

 

The talk, co-authored by Ken Cummins (University of Arizona), Tim Lang (NASA), and Dennis Buechler (NASA), included an inter-comparison of the Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM), International Space Station-Lightning Imaging Sensor (ISS-LIS), and Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission-Lightning Imaging Sensor (TRMM-LIS). Zhang presented the work on the satellite lightning observations, funded by NOAA ROSES, and the Raspberry Pi observations, funded by a CISESS Seed Grant.

 

Zhang’s work at ESSIC focuses on evaluating and assessing space-based lightning sensors such as the GLM. She is a part of the ESSIC/CISESS Geostationary Lightning Team, which also includes Scott Rudlosky, Guangyang Fang, and Joseph Patton.