Calibrated, Multiband Radiometric Measurements of the Optical Radiation from Lightning

TL;DRAbstract

Calibrated, multiband radiometric measurements of the optical radiation emitted by rocket-triggered lightning (RTL) have been made in the ultraviolet (UV, 200-360 nm), the visible and near infrared (VNIR, 400-1000 nm), and the long wave infrared (LWIR, 8-12 µm) spectral bands. Measurements were recorded from a distance of 198 m at the University of Florida International Center for Lightning Research and Testing (ICLRT) during the summers of 2011 and 2012. The ICLRT provided time-correlated measurements of the current at the base of the RTL channels. Following the onset of a return stroke, the dominant mechanism for the initial rise of the UV and VNIR waveforms was the geometrical growth of the channel in the field-of-view of the sensors. The UV emissions peaked about 0.7 µs after the current peak, with a peak spectral power emitted by the source per unit length of channel of 10 ± 7 kW/(nm-m) in the UV. The VNIR emissions peaked 0.9 µs after the current peak, with a spectral power of at

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